


The New Girl

by Rainbow35



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Tamers, Something Wicked Nothing Sacred
Genre: AU ish, Action/Adventure, Autistic Character, Crossover, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Romance, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 42,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6307813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbow35/pseuds/Rainbow35
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a new girl in Rika's school, who seems just as cold as she is. Could the two of them be friends?</p><p>(Also posted on ff.net)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue and Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know this isn't particularly good and some people are probably OOC. Also, this is set before the Devas start appearing, and is also kinda AU. The sign language is based on Irish Sign Language, though I don't think I've described it clearly enough anywhere for that to be clear.

**Prologue**

Rika sat at school, ignoring nearly everything her teacher was saying. Not only was the lesson not remotely interesting, but today she had something more interesting to look at. Not just today, in fact, but for the past two weeks. Two weeks ago, a new girl had joined their class, and she somehow had more of an aloof and mysterious air about her than Rika managed to have herself. And Rika had spent years building up her "ice queen" reputation, only talking to those she deemed worthy of her time, which was barely anyone. And yet this girl- whose name she couldn't remember- had managed to outdo her in terms of coldness in just two weeks?

She stared at the girl. Unlike Rika, this girl didn't exude any kind of aura of coolness (though the school uniform dampened it on anyone), and looked pretty much just like the rest of the girls in the class, except that her hair was short and a bit uneven, but not in a way that suggested it was a fashion statement or in any way on purpose. It looked a bit like she used to have longer hair but it got ran over with a lawn mower.

Of course, Rika knew why this girl had such a cold reputation. It was because she didn't speak to _anyone_. She just _looked_ at anyone who tried to speak to her, and occasionally smiled or made some gestures. After a few days, pretty much everyone in the class just gave up on trying to speak to her at all.

The bell rang for lunch, and as usual, everyone went outside except for Rika and the new girl.

"Hey," Rika called over, "What's your name?"

The girl said nothing, but made some gestures with her hand.

Rika stared blankly, "What?"

The girl laughed. That was the most of her voice that Rika- or anyone- ever heard, and it was pretty rare. She gestured again, then got up and went over to the chalkboard. She wrote, "My name is Naomi. What's your name?" and drew a smiley face.

"My name's Rika. Are you deaf, or mute, or what?"

Naomi rubbed the writing off the board and wrote, "No, sort of, and yes."

"Not deaf, sort of mute, and yes what?"

Naomi laughed and nodded. She cleared the board and wrote again, "I'm not deaf. I'm mute sometimes. I have autism. I can't speak when I'm anxious."

"Oh, I see," Rika said. Suddenly, the whole "ice queen" reputation that Naomi had seemed to also have just disappeared. She wasn't actually cold or aloof at all; she just couldn't speak. Somehow, that seemed anticlimactic, and it made Rika much less curious about her. But unfortunately, she'd started talking to her now, and she didn't really have any excuse to just leave the room or anything.

Naomi wrote, "What about you? Why don't you talk to people?"

Rika shrugged, "I just don't like them. Especially the girls in this school; they're all so pretentious, and cruel when they feel like it. They like accusing me of being a lesbian because I'm good at digimon cards."

Naomi laughed and gestured something, then wrote on the board, "Really? That's stupid. They call me a lesbian 'cause I have short hair. But at least with me they're right." she drew a smiley face.

Rika wasn't sure how to respond to that, "Oh. Well, they're all idiots, so they probably don't actually know that."

Naomi grinned and nodded, then cleared the board and wrote, "You should learn sign language so I can sign to you. Even just learn the alphabet, and then I can spell things out."

So that's what her gestures were. "Does anyone here know sign language?" Rika asked.

Naomi shook her head.

"What, the teachers just- Yeah, okay, that's not surprising."

"They don't seem to know sign language interpreters exist, and I don't really care," Naomi wrote.

Rika considered it. Of _course_ the teachers just didn't care enough to get some kind of assistant. They could well afford one, but they never seemed to bother with _anything_ the students could benefit from.

"Hmm," Rika said, "Can I give you a suggestion? And I'll learn the alphabet if you do it."

Naomi looked confused but nodded slowly.

"You should dye your hair. It would look really cool."

She grinned and nodded, then signed something, but Rika didn't know what.

The bell rang then, signaling the end of lunch, and Naomi quickly cleared the writing off the chalkboard, and the two girls sat back down again.

* * *

When school ended, Rika grabbed Naomi before she could leave. Naomi froze and looked confused.

"Sorry," Rika said, "What's your phone number? I have the numbers of half the girls in this class and I don't even talk to them, so I might as well have yours."

Naomi smiled and nodded, then signed something, seeming to say, "Give me your phone and I'll give you mine".

"Oh, yeah, sure," Rika said, and the two of them each put their numbers into the other's phone.

"Okay," Rika said, "I'll see you around."

Naomi signed, "Wait."

"What?"

She then signed something, but Rika had no idea what.

"...I have no idea what you're saying."

Naomi sighed, then did it again, but slower.

"Oh, is that the alphabet?"

Naomi nodded.

"I'm not going to be able to pick it up just from watching you do it once," Rika said, "Oh, how do you spell my name? It's R-I-K-A."

Naomi spelled that out, and Rika copied her.

"Is that right?"

Naomi nodded.

"Cool, thank you. At least I know something, now. I'll learn the rest later, okay?"

Naomi nodded, then made a heart shape with her hands.

Rika wasn't sure how to respond to that, "Okay, bye."

* * *

**Chapter 1**

When Rika got home, after changing out of her uniform, she looked up the sign language alphabet and practiced the letters.

Renamon appeared next to her, "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Rika said, "What does it look like?"

"...I'm not sure what it looks like."

"Exactly."

Suddenly, Renamon's ears twitched and she stiffened, "I sense a digimon."

Rika immediately stopped what she was doing, "Well, then what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

Renamon phased out of sight, to run towards the digimon.

Rika ran in the same direction.

When Rika got to the digital field, the digimon still hadn't emerged from the fog. Henry and Terriermon were there, but there was no sign of Takato and Guilmon yet.

Rika sighed, "Where's Gogglehead? Why does he always have to be late? Does he even take this seriously?"

Henry looked around, "He might've gotten lost. We're in an unfamiliar area."

"All he has to do is follow the arrows on his digivice. It's not hard. I don't know where we are, either."

The fog started to fade, but Rika still couldn't tell what digimon it was.

"What is that?" she asked.

"I don't know," Henry said, holding up his digivice to try to get a signal.

Rika did the same.

"It's strong, I can sense it," Renamon said.

Impmon appeared then, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Hey, why do all of you always get to fight every digimon that appears? I don't even get a chance to show how strong I am! That ain't fair!" he said.

"Trust me, we know exactly how strong you are," Renamon said dryly.

Terriermon giggled, "Yeah, how strong you _aren't_."

Henry gently dug his fist into Terriermon's head, "Don't say that, it's not nice."

Finally, the fog faded completely, revealing the digimon.

Henry and Rika's digivices both displayed the information at the same time, "Kurisarimon, champion level, virus type. Attack: Data Crusher."

At that moment, Takato and Guilmon showed up, Takato out of breath, "Hey, sorry we're late," he panted, "We got lost."

"See, I told you," Henry said.

Impmon flung a fireball at the digimon, "Bada boom!"

Kurisarimon was unaffected, and threw a spiked tentacle out in Impmon's direction, who jumped back.

"Ha! Is that all you got?" Impmon taunted.

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Renamon asked.

"Of course it is!" Impmon yelled, "I'm stronger than all of you! How could you even ask that? Bada boom!"

He threw another fireball in Kurisarimon's direction, who remained unimpressed.

"Data crusher!" Kurisarimon launched a blast of electricity at Impmon, who screamed as he was thrown backwards, landing somewhere far off in the distance.

"And now it's our turn!" Terriermon said, jumping off Henry's shoulder, "Right?"

"Yep!" Henry said, swiping a card, "Digivolution activate!"

Terriermon digivolved into Gargomon, and started firing at Kurisarimon.

Takato looked around, "Hey, where are we, exactly? It looks like an estate, or something. I hope nobody comes out of the houses and notices what's going on."

Rika looked around too. It did look like an estate, but one in pretty bad condition. This must have been "the bad part of town" that her mother sometimes mentioned. Obviously wild digimon didn't discriminate in where they appeared, though. Either way, the people here needed protecting just as much as the people in a wealthier part of the city would.

That was irrelevant, anyway. She and Renamon were there to fight, and win. She turned back to focus on the battle. Kurisarimon really seemed unaffected by Gargomon's attacks.

"Digivolution activate!" she said, as she swiped a card.

Renamon digivolved into Kyuubimon, and joined Gargomon in attacking Kurisarimon. "Foxtail inferno!"

This attack seemed to have a bit more effect.

"Digivolution activate!" Takato said, and Guilmon digivolved into Growlmon.

Just then, the door of one of the houses opened.

"Oh, damn it," Takato said, "That's just what I didn't want to happen. I hope they don't call the police or something."

"I'm pretty sure they wouldn't believe them," Rika said, and looked over at the door of the house.

She felt like her breath had been pulled out of her.

"What's wrong?" Takato asked.

The person who had come out of the door of the house, and who was now wandering towards the battle, was Naomi.

Rika just stared. She didn't want anyone in her class knowing her secret, and she was also concerned for Naomi's safety. Someone without a digimon partner could easily be killed if they just wandered around the battlefield, which was precisely what Naomi was doing.

"Pretty," Naomi whispered in awe.

"No," Rika said, "It's dangerous! Stay away!"

Naomi just smiled.

Rika realised that Naomi had spoken just there. Did that mean she wasn't anxious right now? She was faced with a potentially life-or-death situation and it apparently didn't scare her?

Kurisarimon growled, and launched a few tentacles out at random. Rika dodged one, and so did Naomi.

"Pyro blaster!"

Growlmon launched a fireball at Kurisarimon.

"I want it," Naomi said, staring at the digimon.

"What?" Rika said.

"Digivolution activate!" she said, and laughed.

Rika wasn't sure if Naomi was trying to communicate, or was just repeating things for fun.

"It doesn't do anything when you say it," Rika said, "You need a digimon partner."

Naomi made a heart with her hands then signed it breaking, but smiled.

Rika laughed, and turned back to the battle.

Somehow, Kurisarimon seemed mostly undamaged by all the attacks.

"Maybe if we attack all together?" Henry said.

But before they could do that, Kurisarimon reached a tentacle out and wrapped it around Gargomon, and electrocuted him. Gargomon screamed, and tried to get his arms free to shoot, but couldn't.

"Dragon wheel!" Kyuubimon launched herself, covered in blue flames, at Kurisarimon to try and make him drop Gargomon. However, it had no effect, and he just reached out a tentacle and wrapped it around Kyuubimon and electrocuted her, too.

Kyuubimon screamed, and Rika frantically flicked through her modify cards to try and find a suitable one.

Naomi covered her ears and screamed, "Unforgivable!" She then ran back into her house.

Growlmon growled and hit Kurisarimon with his claw, but found that if he went near the electrified tentacles, they just shocked him, too.

"What do we do?" Takato asked frantically.

"Why are you freaking out? It's not your partner who's wrapped in an electrified tentacle!" Rika snapped.

"S-Sorry."

Naomi came back out of her house, holding a knife.

"Uh," Henry said, "That'll just get you electrocuted too."

Naomi shook her head, and ran over to between Rika and Takato. She then threw the knife at the tentacle that was holding Kyuubimon. The knife spun as it flew over, and broke through the tentacle with a crackle of electricity.

"Oh. That was clever," Takato said.

Naomi ran over to pick up the knife, but Kurisarimon beat her to it, and flung the knife at her before she could move away. It sliced through her shoulder, and cut the strap of her dress. The white t-shirt she was wearing beneath her dress immediately got soaked in blood, and she screamed and fell to her knees, shaking.

She picked up the blood-covered knife from the ground beside her, and threw it as hard as she could at the tentacle holding Gargomon. Gargomon was released too, but Kurisarimon picked up the knife and threw it at Naomi again. It cut the side of her face this time as it spun past her, and she screamed again.

Rika felt the blood drain from her face. She didn't care about most people in her class- or in general- and now the one person she was starting to warm up to was possibly going to die? She dropped all her cards in shock, except for the one she was currently holding.

This was the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen. Instead of them defeating the digimon, the digimon remained unharmed by all their attacks, and Naomi had gotten hurt saving _them_. Naomi wasn't even a tamer! She had nothing to do with this, and no reason to get hurt!

Naomi lay down on the ground. She touched the side of her face that had been cut, and flinched, then started crying.

Rika couldn't breathe. This was so wrong.

The card she was holding started to glow, and Takato and Henry turned to stare at her.

With barely any awareness of what she was doing, she swiped the card, which was now a blue card.

"Digivolution activate!"

Kyuubimon digivolved to Taomon.

Taomon immediately floated in the air, and painted a symbol, "Talisman of light!"

The symbol glowed and enveloped Kurisarimon in its light. Kurisarimon dissolved into data, which Taomon absorbed.

Rika went over to Naomi, who turned over and kneeled up.

"Are you okay?"

Naomi said nothing, but smiled and flapped her hands.

"Does that mean something?" Rika asked.

Naomi shook her head.

Taomon crouched down next to Naomi, "I might be able to use this light to heal you," she said, "Hold still."

Taomon drew a tiny talisman in the air next to Naomi, and it glowed onto her wounds, healing them and leaving only faint scars.

Naomi signed something, but Rika didn't know what.

"What?" Rika asked.

"Thank you," she said out loud, then stood up.

"Oh," Rika replied.

Takato and Henry went over.

"Thank you," Takato said to Naomi, "You really helped us!"

Naomi signed something, then looked like she was thinking. She looked down at the ground then spoke, "No problem. It doesn't feel real to me, so it's fine. It's like in anime."

"Well, yeah, it kinda is. You know Digimon, right?" Takato said.

Naomi nodded, "This is Digimon?"

"Uh... Well, no, but the digimon are digimon."

Naomi gave Takato a strange look, then looked away again.

"That made no sense," Rika said, then turned to Naomi, "What he meant to say is that digimon- the creatures, not the show- are real. The three of us- me, Takato, and Henry-" she pointed to each of them, "We're digimon tamers. We have digimon partners, and we fight the wild digimon that appear here, in order to absorb their data and get stronger. Well, that's why me and Renamon do it, anyway."

Naomi laughed and looked at the ground, "To get stronger? I was expecting something more cliche."

"Like... To protect people?" Takato asked.

"That's why Takato and I fight the digimon," Henry said, "Not for fun. I hate fighting, but it's worth it if it means innocent people don't get hurt."

Naomi laughed more, "So cliche, wow!"

Rika smiled, but said nothing.

Henry and Takato looked uncomfortable.

Just then, Impmon limped towards them, "Aw man, you guys have to spoil everything. You should've waited for me to finish off that digimon, instead of you human-loving pets getting his data!"

Terriermon stifled a laugh, "But it took you like twenty minutes just to get back here!"

"Yeah, that's called saving the best for last!"

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"Pets?" Naomi asked.

"Not really-" Rika began, but was cut off by Impmon.

"Yeah, these humans are keeping their digimon as pets. Slaves! And to make it even worse, they just go along with it, when they could be living their lives as free, independent digimon like me. But you're just another human, anyway, so I don't know why I'm even explaining it to you," he said, then turned away.

"Hmm," Naomi said, "If they're okay with it then I don't see the problem."

"Please ignore him," Renamon said, "He seems to think that since he doesn't want a human partner, nobody should have one."

"Oh. That's stupid," Naomi said.

"Fine, have fun being treated like babies!" Impmon said, then ran off.

" _Someone's_ bitter," Terriermon said, "I bet he's jealous because we can digivolve and he can't."

"Digivolution activate!" Naomi said.

"Oh, by the way, Naomi," Rika said, "You have to keep this a secret, okay?"

She nodded.

"Alright, good."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (If you are on the autism spectrum and feel that my portrayal of Naomi as an autistic person is way off, please feel free to correct me. I am on the autism spectrum myself, and some of her traits are based on mine but exaggerated, but since I'm exaggerating and fictionalising it I might be representing it badly, so if I am I apologize. So correct me if it goes against your own experience or you feel that I'm mis-representing it.)

The next morning, Rika was up particularly early. She went over to the playground near Takato and Henry's school, and saw that Takato, Kazu and Kenta were trying to play a three-way digimon cards match, with Henry and Jeri watching.

"Hey, that card was mine!" Kenta yelled, "I lost it last week, I was wondering where it went!"

"You snooze, you lose, it's mine now! And I'm gonna beat you with it!" Kazu replied.

Kenta and Takato groaned.

Rika went over to them.

"Aw man, another girl we're gonna have to teach digimon cards to?" Kazu said, without really looking at her.

"Uh, Kazu..." Takato said.

" _Really_? You think you're going to have to teach the _Digimon Queen_ , who can beat all of you put together with her eyes closed, how to play digimon cards?" Rika said coldly.

Kazu looked up, and his eyes widened, "Uh, no, that's not what I meant!" he looked around, "I meant, uh, her!" he said, and pointed to Jeri, who giggled.

Rika rolled her eyes and sighed, "I'll let you away with it, _this time_."

Takato sighed quietly in relief.

"So, uh, what brings you over here?" Henry asked.

"I'm bored. I managed to be so early to school that I was the only one there."

As she said that, Rika's phone went off. It was a text from Naomi. Or rather, a picture; it was a picture of Naomi, who now had purple hair. Her phone went off again; the text said, "So you've learned some sign language now, right?" followed by a smiley face.

Rika texted back, "Yeah, I've learned a bit. I know most of the alphabet now and a few phrases. Your hair is awesome!"

After a bit of hesitation, she then sent, "Also, I'm in Shinjuku playground with Takato, Henry and their friends, if you want to come here for a while before school."

Naomi replied, "Yay!"

Naomi showed up after a few minutes, and spelled "Hi" to Rika.

Rika smiled, both because of Naomi, and because she understood what she'd signed.

"Oh, wow, nice hair!" Takato said.

Naomi signed a response, but realised halfway through that nobody understood.

She spelled out to Rika, "Will you read out what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, I guess," Rika said.

"It was Rika's idea. I think it's against our school's rules, but I also think they think I'm deaf or something, so it should be fine."

Naomi laughed, and signed "Thank you" to Rika. She then went over to Takato, Kazu and Kenta, and watched them playing digimon cards.

"Do you know how to play this?" Takato asked her.

She shook her head.

"Get Rika to teach you, she's the best at it. Literally; she won the card tournament earlier this year."

"We're pretty good too!" Kazu said.

"Sure you are," Rika said sarcastically, "I bet you wouldn't even last five minutes against me."

"Fine then, let's see!" Kazu said, and picked up his cards.

"What? But we were just in the middle of a game," Kenta said.

"I was gonna win anyway," Kazu said, as he went over to Rika and the two of them set up their cards.

Naomi went over to watch.

Before anyone even knew what had happened, the game was over, and of course, Rika had won.

"How did you do that?" Kazu asked incredulously.

"I told you," Rika said, "I could beat any of you in my sleep."

Naomi laughed.

"I'll teach you how to play sometime, if you want," Rika said to Naomi.

Naomi nodded.

* * *

Later that day, Rika's digivice started beeping in the middle of class. It was quiet enough that nobody seemed to really notice, but she wondered how she could leave without the teacher noticing.

" _Damn it,"_ she thought, " _Another one? Not even twenty-four hours later?"_

She realised that Naomi was looking at her. Her digivice finally stopped beeping, but she still had to leave somehow.

Finally, she thought of an idea.

" _Renamon,"_ she called her partner telepathically, " _Can you get me out of here?"_

" _Of course, Rika,"_ Renamon replied, appearing in the shadows of a corner of the classroom.

" _Actually, could you take Naomi, too?"_

" _Sure."_

Renamon grabbed Rika and Naomi and brought them out of the classroom so fast that it looked like they just disappeared into thin air. She dropped them outside the school.

"Do you wanna come watch us fight?" Rika asked Naomi, who only seemed mildly surprised at having been grabbed and brought out of the classroom so fast.

Naomi nodded, and the two of them went off in the direction Rika's digivice was pointing.

* * *

When they got to the digital field, it was another Kurisarimon.

"That's weird," Rika said, "I don't think the same digimon has ever appeared twice in a row before. Or even twice at all, actually."

"Weird," Naomi said out loud, "Conspiracy?"

"I don't think it would be anything like that," she replied, and looked around, "It looks like we're the only ones here. But if I still have that blue card..."

She looked through her cards, but there was no sign of the blue card from yesterday.

"I don't think I could have lost it this morning..."

"Do you have the same number of cards you had yesterday?"

"I'm not gonna waste time counting my cards," Rika said, and found a regular digivolution card instead, "Digivolution activate!"

Renamon digivolved to Kyuubimon, and shot fire at Kurisarimon, "Foxtail inferno!"

"Digivolution activate," Naomi said.

"Do you just like those words?"

Naomi nodded.

Just then, both Impmon and Calumon showed up.

"Another," Naomi said, staring at Calumon.

"Yeah, that's Calumon. He's small and annoying, and everyone finds him cute."

"And he's been following me around all day!" Impmon said.

"I just want to play!" Calumon pouted.

Impmon looked at Naomi, "I didn't know humans' hair could change colour."

Naomi grinned, " _Humans'_ hair can't."

Impmon looked shocked, "If you really ain't a human, prove it!"

She pointed to her hair.

"No, I mean, why not fight this guy with me?" Impmon said, pointing to Kurisarimon.

"She did yesterday," Rika said, "You just missed it."

Naomi looked like she was thinking, then spoke, "Okay."

She took out a small knife and walked towards Kurisarimon and Kyuubimon.

"Stand back please," she said.

Kyuubimon backed off slightly from Kurisarimon, and Naomi threw the knife into its eye as hard as she could. Kurisarimon screamed and flailed its tentacles around, while shooting sparks of electricity in random directions.

"See? Better than you could do!" Naomi said to Impmon, smiling.

"Foxtail inferno!" Kyuubimon launched another attack at Kurisarimon since he was weakened.

Immediately, the digimon exploded into data, and Naomi's knife fell to the ground.

"Absorb its data, then," Impmon said.

Naomi shrugged, "Okay, I'll try," she said, and closed her eyes.

The data started swirling around and drifting towards Naomi. Rika wondered if this was a coincidence, or if Naomi really wasn't human.

As soon as the data touched Naomi, she dropped to the ground, looking like she'd been punched in the stomach.

She seemed to absorb a tiny amount of the data, but then fainted. Impmon and Kyuubimon absorbed the rest of the data between them.

" _I wonder if I could do that,"_ Rika thought.

Naomi woke up a few minutes later.

"Okay, I believe you," Impmon said, "Are you half-digimon or what?"

Naomi shrugged, "It's a mystery."

Rika spelled out to Naomi, "Are you really not human?"

Naomi spelled back, "Nope. I am human. Coincidence."

Rika really wasn't sure what to think. Obviously Naomi was lying to _someone_. She did get the impression that Naomi was just trying to play a joke on Impmon, but then did that mean that all humans could absorb data? Or at least sort of?

Impmon looked between Rika and Naomi, "What was that?"

"Nothing," Naomi smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been a few weeks, and the tamers were getting used to Kurisarimons appearing nearly every day; since the day Naomi helped to kill one, they realised its eyes were its weakness, and got Guilmon- or Growlmon- to weaken them by stabbing his claw into their eyes. It had become nearly routine at this point.

In the meantime, Takato had told his classmates that he, Henry and Rika were digimon tamers, while Rika and Naomi had become closer friends.

Rika still wondered in the back of her mind whether humans really could absorb data, but she hadn't got the opportunity to try it for herself yet, especially since she tended to get too caught up in the battles as they happened, to remember at the right moment.

It was a Saturday, and Rika's mother was trying to convince her to try on dresses, while Rika pretended not to hear.

"Please, Rika. You know you'd look beautiful in a dress. You do get your looks from me, you know."

Rika rolled her eyes.

"Oh, so you _can_ hear me. Rika, you can't just ignore me!"

Rika continued doing exactly that, but then had an idea.

"Wait, what if I got someone _else_ to try on dresses for you? Would that work?" she asked.

"...I guess," her mother said, "Maybe if you see your friend doing it then you'll know it's not so bad."

"Yeah, whatever," Rika said, and texted Naomi.

"My mom is trying to make me wear dresses. Do you wanna take my place?"

Naomi replied almost immediately, "That sounds great!"

Rika texted Naomi directions to her house, and waited.

* * *

Before long, Naomi was there. Rika met her at the gate and walked her inside.

"Pretty house," Naomi whispered, "Pretty garden."

"Yeah, I know," Rika said, "Are you gonna be able to speak to my mom? I know you can with me, Takato and Henry."

Naomi shrugged.

The two of them went inside, where Rika's mother was waiting, with five dresses laid out on the sofa.

Naomi looked surprised, and signed to Rika, "Wow, enthusiasm."

Rika laughed, "Yeah, my mom lives for fashion. Literally; she works as a model."

Naomi spelled out, "Oh, wow. I admire that."

"Really? You just stand there and get pictures taken of you. It couldn't be that hard."

Naomi shook her head emphatically, then grinned, and spelled out, "Hey, if it's so easy, why don't you do it?"

Rika shuddered, remembering the one time she did go along with it. She wasn't sure which she hated more, the dresses or the cameras. Either way, the two together were a nightmare, despite what she'd just said about how easy it must be. She was sure it _was_ easy for her mother though, since she surely enjoyed it.

She shook her head, "No way. I don't do dresses."

Naomi laughed, "Not so easy, then?" she said out loud.

"Oh, so you _do_ speak," Rika's mother said.

Naomi blushed bright red and made a slight choking noise, and looked down to the ground.

Rika glared at her mother.

"Sorry, should I not have said that?"

Naomi shook her head, her face still red. She signed to Rika, "Embarrassed."

"You don't need to be, don't worry," Rika said, "Hey, if it would make you feel better, I'll try on a dress with you. Just one! But then we'll both be embarrassed."

Naomi smiled shyly and nodded.

"You can both just change here if you want," Rika's mother said, "We are all women here, after all."

Naomi looked taken aback.

"What? _No!_ Mom, why do you always have to completely freak out my friends? Anyway, there is a thing called privacy!" Rika yelled.

"Okay, okay!"

Rika huffed and picked up a dress at random, then turned to Naomi, "Take whichever one you want, and you can come with me if you want."

Naomi looked at the dresses, then picked one which was light blue with glittery purple stars on it, and followed Rika.

The two of them went into Rika's room.

"I'll face this way, and you can face that way," Rika said, pointing in two opposite directions.

Naomi nodded, and the two girls put on their dresses.

Rika went to take her hair down, but hesitated. She didn't like having her hair down as a general rule, especially not in front of… Well, anyone, really. She didn't mind Renamon or her family, but it felt wrong somehow with anyone else.

Naomi signed, "Hair down would be nice," then added as an afterthought, "If you want."

"Yeah, I guess. I don't like having it down, though."

"Then don't," Naomi spelled out.

"You look really pretty," Rika said, "I like how the stars match your hair."

Naomi smiled, "Thank you," she signed and spoke at the same time.

The dress Rika had picked was light pink, with bits of white lace on it.

"You look pretty too," Naomi said, and looked away.

Rika looked at Naomi again, and suddenly felt a strong feeling she didn't understand and couldn't describe. Something about the slight blush on Naomi's face, and the way the stars on her dress matched the colour of her hair. Something about her suddenly seemed so captivating, and Rika felt like it had literally taken her breath away.

She snapped back to reality, realising she'd been staring at her friend for way too long now, and that her face was going red.

Naomi took her phone out of the pocket of her clothes on the ground, "Wanna take pictures?" she laughed.

"I guess, if you insist," Rika said, "Just don't show anyone."

Naomi burst out laughing.

Rika was confused, but had gotten kinda used to Naomi doing this kind of thing. Not laughing for no reason, but for a reason she hadn't said yet or that other people hadn't noticed.

Naomi grinned, "Don't show anyone, or can I show myself?"

"Of course you can show yourself," Rika smiled, wondering what exactly was so funny about that, "Just not anyone else."

Naomi bounced up and down slightly, still laughing a bit, "Okay."

"My mom might have a fancy camera, if you really wanna go all-out with the taking pictures thing."

Naomi nodded.

Rika and Naomi finally went back out to the living room, where Rika's mother was waiting.

"You both look so beautiful! But Rika, you'd look so much better with your hair down. I don't know why you always wear it up like that."

Naomi signed, "Be nice."

Rika smiled, "She told you to be nice," she said to her mom.

Rika's mother sighed, "Well, I'm going to go get the camera, okay?"

She left, and returned with a Polaroid camera.

Naomi signed, "Yay!"

"Okay," Rika's mother said, "Stand closer together so I can get a nice picture of the two of you."

Rika and Naomi did that, and Rika noticed she was blushing again at the feeling of her arm brushing lightly against Naomi's. She looked away.

"Rika, look at the camera!"

She looked at the camera, but grimaced as the flash went off. Even though she was just at home with her mom and Naomi, cameras and dresses were still a bad combination.

"Can I?" Naomi asked.

"Sure," Rika's mother said, and gave the camera to Naomi.

"Smile?" she asked Rika.

Rika smiled, but didn't look directly at the camera.

"You're so pretty!" Naomi said, after taking a picture.

"Thank you," Rika said.

Naomi gave Rika the camera, and smiled enthusiastically as Rika took two pictures of her.

Naomi took the camera back and took another picture of Rika, "One each now, right?"

"Yeah, now we'll both have one picture of ourselves and one picture of the other. Though honestly, I'll probably just burn the one of me. I really hate dresses."

Naomi looked unsure.

"I like dresses on other people- like you," Rika blushed as she said that, "And you can keep the picture of me if you like it. I just don't want to be reminded that my dress-wearing ever happened. Speaking of which, I'm gonna go change back now, alright?"

Naomi nodded, and Rika walked away.


	4. Chapter 4

It was Saturday evening now, and Naomi was still in Rika's house, still wearing the dress with glittery purple stars.

"You know," Rika said to Naomi, as they sat on the sofa together half-watching TV, "You could probably keep that dress if you wanted. We have like a million dresses and other clothes- but mostly dresses- that my mom gets from her modelling people. I don't think she'd even notice, and there's no chance of me ever wearing it."

"I don't wanna steal from you," Naomi said, "But if it was okay, maybe I would. The glitter makes me feel magical," she laughed.

"Really, I'd be happy to get rid of it. It's one less dress I could potentially be pressured into wearing."

"Okay then!"

Just then, Rika's digivice beeped. She sighed in exasperation, "Not _again!_ "

"Again?"

"You know, a wild digimon again. There's been one nearly every day, and they're _always_ Kurisarimons. I wish there'd at least be some variety."

"Hmm, don't regret saying that. What if it's worse?"

"Yeah, I guess, it could be worse. Anyway, do you wanna come with me?"

"Yes!" Naomi said, jumping up.

* * *

 

When Rika and Naomi got to the digital field, Takato and Henry were already there, with Terriermon and Guilmon. Renamon appeared quickly from the shadows, and Impmon leapt down from a nearby tree.

Rika sighed, "Impmon, again? You've never even come close to beating any wild digimon, so I don't know why you keep trying."

"Not with that attitude," Naomi said.

"...What? I don't think that makes sense," Takato said.

"No, I know what she meant," Rika said, "And no, I don't think continuing to try is really gonna help him without a human partner to make him stronger," she said, addressing the last sentence to Naomi.

"Hmm," she replied.

"I don't need any humans! I'm better than all of you!" Impmon said, "I'll prove it! Bada boom!" He threw a fireball at Naomi, who flinched as it singed the ends of her hair on one side.

The fog cleared from the digital field just then, revealing yet another Kurisarimon.

Rika sighed and swiped a card, "Okay, you guys know the drill. Digivolution activate!"

At the same time, Naomi grabbed Impmon by the bandana around his neck, and lifted him up. She pushed him against the tree he'd jumped down from as he struggled.

"Don't harm me," she said coldly, tightening her grip on him, "Unforgivable."

Impmon struggled to breathe, "What? I didn't mean it, put me down!"

"That's not what unforgivable means!" she screamed.

Rika turned away from the battle to look at them, "What? Naomi, what are you doing?"

Naomi dropped Impmon, and she was shaking now.

Impmon backed away, "I won't do it again, alright? Calm down."

Naomi covered her ears and screamed, "No! You can't do that!" and burst into tears.

Impmon leapt back up into the tree.

Rika turned back to the battle, and saw that Kurisarimon had been destroyed.

"Wait a second, I want to try something!" she said, and ran into the cloud of data before it dissipated or any of the digimon could absorb it.

As the data touched her she felt horrible pain. She tried to concentrate and possibly absorb it, but she couldn't think straight anymore, and it hurt too much. It felt like her skin was being stabbed with electrified needles, and it was unbearable.

Suddenly her vision faded, and she felt nothing.

* * *

 

When Rika woke up, she could still hear Naomi crying. Her head was spinning and she wasn't sure if she could move. She wasn't in pain anymore, though.

She turned over and forced herself to get up, and slowly went over to where Naomi, Takato and Henry were.

"I'm so glad you're awake," Takato said, as Henry continued trying to calm Naomi down, "We don't know what's wrong with her, and what happened to you, anyway? I guess we should've been trying to wake you up too or something, but you did tell us before about her doing the same thing that time that you got there before we did, and you said she was fine, so I figured you'd be fine," he babbled.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine," she said, and approached Naomi, "Hey, are you okay? I know Impmon burned your hair, but it was only a tiny bit. No-one will even notice, and it'll grow back, anyway."

Naomi took a shaky breath, then hugged Rika tightly, "No," she said.

"No what?"

"That's what they said before."

"That your hair would grow back?"

"Yeah. That's why it's so short," she sobbed.

"It's okay," Rika said, hugging Naomi back and trying to be soothing, "Short hair looks cute on you, anyway."

"No, it doesn't."

Rika wasn't entirely sure what Naomi was talking about; it sounded like nonsense. But as was usually the case, it probably made sense within some context that Naomi was aware of and she wasn't. It sounded like someone had forcefully cut her hair short before, but she wasn't sure.

Rika rubbed Naomi's back, "It's okay, don't worry. What happened before? Do you want to tell me?"

"No, I want to kill Impmon."

"You came pretty close to it."

"Yeah," Naomi sniffled, then pulled away from Rika and wiped her eyes, "I guess that's close enough. Maybe murder is too much."

"Yeah, I think murder is too much. Do you wanna come back to my house with me?"

Naomi nodded, then signed, "Can I sleep over?"

Rika nodded, and spelled out, "If it's okay."

Naomi breathed shakily, and the two of them left to return to Rika's house.

* * *

 

"Where did you both go?" Rika's mother asked, as soon as they returned.

Naomi shook her head.

Rika sighed, "We were _out._ "

Rika's grandmother appeared from the kitchen, "Oh, good, you're back. I've made dinner for you and your friend."

"Thanks," Rika said.

Naomi covered her face and started crying.

Rika put her hand on Naomi's shoulder, and Naomi flinched.

"Are you okay?" Rika asked quietly, "Do you want dinner?"

"I don't want anything," Naomi sobbed.

"What's wrong?" Rika's mother asked.

"Nothing," Rika said, and brought Naomi into her room.

Naomi sat down on the floor, still crying, and Rika brought an extra mattress into the room and put it next to the one she normally slept on.

"Do you wanna tell me why you're so upset?"

Naomi said nothing, but went and lay down on the mattress instead of the floor.

Rika gave Naomi her phone, "Do you wanna write instead of speaking?"

Naomi didn't reply, but she took the phone and typed for a while, then gave it back to Rika.

It said, "I don't wanna go into it in detail, but basically a few different times, awful people have forcefully cut my hair shorter or shaved it off, and it was really upsetting, so now I'm insecure about my hair and don't like it being made even shorter than it already is."

Rika put the phone down and nodded, "Yeah, I'd kinda thought it was something like that. I… I don't really know what to say."

Naomi made a heart shape with her hands.

"My mom and grandma will probably be offended if you don't have some dinner with us."

"Okay, I will, then," Naomi said.

* * *

 

Later that night, Rika couldn't sleep properly. She wasn't sure if it was due to not being used to sharing a room with someone, or if it was because it was Naomi specifically. It also didn't help that Naomi kept tossing and turning, and occasionally sobbing in her sleep. Rika half wanted to wake her up, just to save her from whatever she must have been dreaming about, but she wasn't sure.

She noticed that Naomi had never actually said whether it was okay with her parents for her to stay over, but she had seen her texting someone, so presumably they knew. Rika hadn't wanted to risk upsetting her again, and she had a bad feeling about asking her about her parents, for some reason.

She looked over at Naomi, who was still shifting around and turning over every few minutes. She didn't want to admit it to herself, but she liked watching the other girl sleep. Naomi looked so peaceful and innocent, despite also seeming distressed. She had also insisted on wearing the dress with the stars on it to sleep, even though Rika offered her spare pajamas. She'd said the dress made her feel magical. Rika smiled to herself. She hated most cute things, but somehow Naomi's cuteness just made her like her more.

She looked away from Naomi and smiled, but felt like an idiot. What was she doing? Watching her friend sleep, and smiling to herself in the middle of the night? She was being ridiculous!

She thought of Calumon. She could acknowledge that he was cute- the same applied to Terriermon, actually- but that fact just made her hate him. His adorableness just infuriated her. She turned onto her side and faced Naomi. Maybe it was a lack of sleep making her have such strange thoughts. It must have been nearly two in the morning by now.

She checked the time on her digivice; yep, it was a bit past two.

Naomi opened her eyes, "Awake?" she whispered.

"Sorry," Rika whispered back, "I can't sleep. I was just checking what time it was."

"What time is it?" Naomi asked, at a normal volume.

"About two am."

"You know you offered me sleep clothes earlier?"

"Yeah?"

"Could I take you up on that now? This dress is getting uncomfortable."

"Sure," Rika said, and got up, "I don't think it's meant to be slept in, really."

"I just feel so pretty and magical in it."

Rika found the pajamas she'd offered to Naomi earlier and threw them over to her, "You're pretty and magical no matter what you wear."

Naomi smiled and looked down, "Thank you."

Rika got back into bed and faced away from Naomi, "Tell me when I can look again, okay?"

"I will," Naomi said.

A few minutes later, "Okay, done now," Naomi said, and Rika turned around.

Naomi lay back down, and ran her hand through her hair, frowning.

"It's not _that_ short," Rika said.

"I guess..."

Rika really wasn't sure what to say. What was there to say? She felt so bad for Naomi. She wanted to ask why people apparently liked to cut Naomi's hair off, but she had said earlier that she didn't want to talk about it.

"What are you thinking?" Naomi asked.

"Nothing. Well, to be honest, I'm wondering why people cut your hair off before."

"Because they're horrible," she whispered.

"I know."

"But like why did they want to, is what you mean?"

"Yeah."

She hesitated. "...I don't exist the way they'd like me to."

What did that mean? That honestly gave Rika more questions than it answered.

"I don't know what you mean by that."

"I can't say it any more simply than that," Naomi said, "They want me to be one very specific thing, but I'm a different thing and I don't meet the standards they made up. So they're not happy about that."

"Oh, right," Rika said, though she was still confused. She remembered on the first day she talked to Naomi; Naomi had mentioned offhandedly that she was a lesbian. Maybe that's what she was referring to? Or maybe she was referring to having autism?

"My hair had been to about here," Naomi gestured to her shoulders, "And my mom didn't like that. One day I woke up and she'd shaved my head in my sleep."

Rika shuddered, "Oh my god. Why? I mean, I don't expect you to answer that. Never mind," she shook her head.

"And another time before that, some people in school were teasing me for…" she trailed off, "They cut my hair off, too. Like one of them just took out a scissors and cut it."

"That's awful."

"That's why I switched to this school, because it's all girls. It was boys who did that."

"Is that why you're a lesbian, too?" Rika realised that was a stupid question as soon as she asked it.

Naomi burst out laughing, "No! I can't help who I'm attracted to."

"Yeah, sorry, I'm not thinking properly. It is the middle of the night, you know."

Naomi grinned, "At least you made me laugh. Better than me being sad and remembering bad things," her smile faded, "I'm so insecure too because I worry I look like a boy," she blushed and looked away.

"Oh. Well, you don't," Rika said, "Especially not with purple hair. And you wear dresses all the time."

Naomi just shrugged.

"I don't think you look like a boy, anyway. Did people used to tell you that you did?"

Naomi nodded, "Yeah. Especially with short hair."

"That sucks. Maybe it's not the same thing, but I've had people tell me they think I'm secretly a guy, because I'm so good at digimon cards. Well, it was one random person, right after I won the tournament."

"Ew. Sexism. Sounds like a sore loser."

Rika laughed, "Yeah."

"People are stupid."

Rika nodded, "Yes, they are."

Naomi looked like she was thinking.

"What are you thinking?"

"I don't have words for it," Naomi said.

"Okay," Rika replied.

Naomi closed her eyes, and looked like she was falling asleep. Rika closed her eyes too, and hoped she'd fall asleep this time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for blood and needles, and also it is very likely that there is a lot of medical inaccuracy in this chapter, or at the very least, the things they do are extremely dangerous and should not be done in real life. That is, I don't think "makeshift blood transfusions" are a thing in real life, but if they are theoretically possible, I'm reasonably sure that attempting one would be extremely dangerous and possibly fatal to anyone involved.

The next afternoon, Rika's digivice went off _again_.

Rika sighed, "I'm really getting tired of this. Do you wanna come with me again?" she asked Naomi.

Naomi nodded, "Yes!"

"And if Impmon tries to hurt you again, I'll get Renamon to punch him, okay?"

Naomi laughed, "Okay."

* * *

 

When they got to the digital field, Rika was surprised to see that it wasn't a Kurisarimon this time. It was five of them.

Naomi turned to Rika, "Variety?"

Rika remembered what she'd said yesterday about wishing there was variety, and Naomi's response that she might regret saying that.

"I don't think this counts," Rika said, "It's the same thing, just more of it. I'm not sure how we're going to defeat them."

Takato turned to Rika, "What do you mean? Why can't we defeat them the usual way?"

"No, Takato," Henry said, "There's a pretty good chance that if we go for one, the other four will attack us while we're focused on the one we're attacking. And I don't know if we could handle being attacked by four of them at once, unless Rika- or one of us, anyway- could reach ultimate level again."

Rika nodded, "Yeah, exactly."

Naomi pointed to the Kurisarimons in turn as she counted them, "One, two, three, four, five."

"Yep," Rika said.

"One, two, three, four…" she said, pointing to herself, Renamon, Guilmon and Terriermon, "Hmm. Where's Impmon?"

At that moment, Impmon conveniently appeared.

"Oh jeez, the purple psycho is here again," he said when he saw Naomi.

Naomi half-smiled, "Announcing yourself? But maybe if one of us was closer to psychotic it would be me. I don't think I actually hallucinate though, so really we're both wrong."

Impmon shrugged, "Whatever."

"You should help us, though," Naomi said.

Impmon scoffed, "What? You think _I_ should help _you_ twerps?"

"Yes," she said, "You kept wanting to kill a digimon, didn't you?"

"Fine, I'm listening."

"Okay," Naomi said, addressing everyone, "I stab one, Impmon stabs one, Renamon stabs one, Terriermon or Gargomon stabs one, and Guilmon stabs one. All at the same time."

"Right," Rika said, "But then what?"

"Then just after, everyone steps back, and you guys digivolve them, then they- and Impmon, I guess- fire attacks to hit all of them."

"...Yeah, that sounds like it could work," Rika said.

"Sounds good to me," Henry said, "So all the digimon and you stab the eyes of one Kurisarimon each?"

"Yes. The only problem is that the timing needs to be kinda perfect," Naomi said.

"It's worth a shot, especially if we don't have any other ideas!" Takato said.

Naomi took out her small knife, and all the digimon got into position.

At approximately the same time, Naomi and the digimon went towards the Kurisarimons and stabbed their eyes. Somehow, this part all went according to plan without the Kurisarimons attacking them.

Immediately, they all jumped backwards as the Kurisarimons began flailing around and throwing sparks of electricity everywhere, including into each other. At that second, Rika, Henry and Takato swiped their cards, "Digivolution activate!"

As Renamon, Guilmon and Terriermon digivolved, Impmon attacked the Kurisarimon in front of him, "Summon flame!" He threw the giant fireball at it, and it looked like it was about to burst into data, but instead it flickered.

Kyuubimon, Gargomon and Growlmon each attacked their Kurisarimons, and they burst into data.

However, this left Naomi's one intact, and Impmon's one half-alive.

Naomi had gotten back to a reasonable distance from the fight at this point. Impmon jumped back too, as the two living Kurisarimons were throwing out more electricity in every direction.

Before Kyuubimon or the others could attack the remaining Kurisarimons, the data from the three that had been destroyed started to quickly swirl towards the completely intact one. The half-alive one also burst into data, and the remaining Kurisarimon briefly flickered out of existence, into data, and the data from all five Kurisarimons swirled together into one mass of data.

Naomi froze, as she realised that something bad was happening, and that it was her fault. Before she could try to do anything, the data mass solidified into an Infermon.

"I didn't know that could even happen," Naomi signed to Rika, shaking.

"Yeah, neither did I," Rika said.

"It's not your fault," Henry said to Naomi, "So don't blame yourself. I know it's easy to, but none of us knew they could do that, and you did tell us that the timing had to be perfect."

Naomi grimaced but nodded.

"We'll figure out how to defeat this, don't worry!" Takato said.

Naomi looked down to the ground, still shaking.

The digimon all backed away from Infermon.

"He's an ultimate level," Takato said, "And, if the movie is anything to go by, he's actually stronger than that."

Rika held out her digivice and looked at the information on it, "Yep, ultimate level, virus type. His attack is network grenade."

Naomi frowned, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" she signed.

"It's fine, don't worry," Rika said.

Naomi just shook her head.

Kyuubimon, Growlmon and Gargomon attacked Infermon at the same time, "Foxtail inferno!" "Pyro blaster!" "Gargo laser!"

But, unsurprisingly, it had nearly no effect.

Infermon turned his head towards them, "Network grenade!" He shot out bullets from his mouth, hitting each digimon and sending them flying backwards. They all dedigivolved into their rookie forms.

Impmon looked unsure, but decided to try to attack Infermon anyway, "Summon flame!"

"Network grenade!" Infermon launched a bullet at Impmon before the fireball even hit him.

Before Impmon knew what had happened, Naomi had jumped in front of him, and was knocked backwards into him by the impact of the bullet. The two of them went flying.

"What was that for?" Impmon yelled, "You're just a _human!_ I could've taken that impact better than you! I know you like to pretend you're not really a human, but I know you are!"

Naomi shook violently. The bullet had gone into her shoulder, and was crackling with electricity.

"Bullet impact physical me you but destroy," Naomi said, breathing shakily.

"That didn't make _any_ sense!"

"Think words together!" Naomi yelled.

"I don't understand what you're saying!" Impmon yelled back.

Naomi closed her eyes and seemed to spasm as the electricity from the bullet went through her.

As soon as she was sure that Renamon was okay, Rika ran over to Naomi, while Henry and Takato both went through their modify cards in the faint hope of finding something that would help right now.

Renamon followed Rika, despite being injured.

Rika knelt down next to Naomi, and turned to Impmon, "What happened? I heard some of it, but what's wrong with her?"

"She- She jumped in front of me when Infermon shot at me," Impmon said, "I asked her why and she just said some nonsense like, 'Bullet impact me you destroy'... Wait, I think I get it now."

Rika thought for a second, "Yeah, that sounds like what she meant was that if it hit you it would destroy you, but if it hit her it would just," she gestured to Naomi, "Do that. As in, she wouldn't shatter into data. But how stupid can one person be? She might die! And how can we take the bullet out of her if it's electrified? And what would we tell a hospital? Oh, she got shot by a digimon?"

Takato ran over to Rika, holding a card, "Hey, you said you need to take out an electrified bullet? If you use this on Renamon, she might be able to do it."

"Great idea!" Rika said, and took the card from Takato, "Digi modify! Rubber activate!"

Renamon changed so that she was made of elastic, then went over to Naomi and removed the electrified bullet.

"Hey," Rika said, "If we all digivolved and then used this card, maybe the digimon would be immune to Infermon's attacks! Or at least not hit as hard."

"Yeah, that's what we were thinking!" Takato said, then did exactly that, "Digi modify, rubber activate! Digivolution activate!"

Guilmon turned to rubber then turned into a rubber Growlmon, who went towards Infermon.

Takato ran over to give Henry the card, and Rika digivolved Renamon.

Rika then immediately turned back to Naomi, who looked like she was starting to wake up.

Naomi opened her eyes, then signed, "Hospital kill me." She then grimaced at the pain caused by moving her right arm.

"I don't get that," Rika said, "Are you saying you _don't_ want to go to hospital?"

Naomi nodded.

"I don't know what I'd tell them, anyway," Rika said, "But I don't know if we can deal with that properly ourselves. It looks pretty bad."

"It's fine," Naomi signed.

"Naomi, it's a bullet wound! It's not fine!"

Naomi laughed slightly.

"Seriously! I'm worried you'll die!"

Naomi shook her head, and signed, "I'll be fine."

Meanwhile, Growlmon, Kyuubimon and Gargomon were attacking Infermon, but their attacks were having nearly no effect, again.

However, this time Infermon's bullets just bounced off them and the electricity had no effect, thanks to their being made of rubber.

"I got an idea!" Henry said, "Growlmon could try cutting that cord connecting Infermon's head to his body!"

"Great idea!" Takato said, "Growlmon, try that!"

"Plasma blade!" Growlmon's claw turned into a blade, and he swung it down onto Infermon's neck, just fast enough for Infermon not to have time to react. The cord was severed, and Infermon exploded into data, which all of the digimon absorbed some of.

As the digimon dedigivolved, Henry and Takato went over to Rika and Naomi.

"Should we call an ambulance or something?" Henry asked, "I'm sure we could make something up."

Naomi shook her head emphatically and signed, "No ambulance."

"She said no, basically," Rika said.

Naomi signed, "Ambulance die."

"I don't know what you mean by that," Rika said.

"Think words together," Naomi signed.

"I heard you yelling that at Impmon. Do you mean…" Rika thought for a minute, "Like, think and fill in the gaps between the words you're giving us?"

Naomi nodded.

"Okay. Though, I guess 'ambulance die', combined with what you said earlier, 'hospital kill me'... You're worried that if we call an ambulance they'll kill you?"

Naomi nodded quickly and gave a thumbs-up.

"You should probably stop signing, by the way. You're going to hurt yourself more by moving your arm. You can just use your left hand and spell things out, or type on your phone."

Naomi nodded reluctantly.

"Can't she just speak? I thought she could speak to us," Takato said.

"She can't speak when she's anxious, and what's more anxiety-inducing than what just happened?" Rika said.

"Scared anxious," Naomi spelled out.

"Yeah," Rika said.

Henry knelt down next to Naomi to look at her wound.

Since the bullet had been removed, she now had a hole in her right shoulder, which was bleeding quite heavily. Her dress- she was still wearing the blue one with purple stars- was bloodstained on parts of her right side, and the ground beneath her was also covered in blood on that side.

"I know some first aid," Henry said.

Naomi smiled, and spelled out, "Lol."

"Did she just… Sign, 'lol'?" Takato asked.

Rika shrugged, "Yeah. She probably thinks it's funny that Henry wants to apply first aid to a bullet wound."

Naomi nodded.

"Well, it's better than nothing," Henry said, "So, Naomi, do you feel dizzy or lightheaded? Do you think you can sit up?"

Naomi slowly attempted to sit up, supporting herself with her left arm. She grimaced at the pain in her right shoulder from moving. Rika went over and sat behind Naomi so that she could lean back onto her.

Naomi held her left hand at an angle that Rika could see, and spelled out, "Dizzy, vision fading in and out."

"She says she's dizzy and her vision is fading in and out," Rika said to Henry.

"Okay," Henry frowned, "That's really not good. If we can get her somewhere and put something on the wound, like wrap it up tightly, she might be alright. Who lives closest to here?"

"I think you do," Takato said, "Also my parents would kinda freak out if I brought a bleeding girl into the bakery."

Henry laughed, "I don't think my family will be very happy, either. But we can come up with something."

* * *

 

Rika, Takato and Henry brought Naomi to Henry's house, with Renamon carrying her. When they got to the door, Renamon put Naomi into Rika's arms, and left.

They went inside, and Rika put Naomi down onto the nearest sofa.

Henry's mother and older sister were there.

"Uh, should she not be in hospital?" Henry's sister asked, "Why is she here?"

"She's refusing to go to hospital or let us call an ambulance," Henry said, "We have bandages and all that, right? Is Suzie here?"

"No, dad took her out."

"Good, she doesn't need to see this."

"Sorry," Naomi signed.

"Don't be sorry," Rika said, then turned to Henry, "I'm sorry, I forgot you had a younger sister. Maybe we should've brought Naomi to my house where nobody could get traumatised."

"If hospital I'll kill myself," Naomi signed, "Just so you know."

"Don't say that!" Rika snapped, "And stop signing, you're going to hurt yourself! But don't say that! What if you have to go to hospital?"

"Then I'll kill myself, like I said," Naomi signed, "No hospital."

Rika bit her lip and looked away.

Henry had left the room. Henry's sister came over, "So, what blood type are you?" she asked Naomi.

Naomi looked like she was thinking, then signed, "I don't know."

Naomi took out her phone, then got it to read out what she typed into it in a robotic voice, "Do you know what blood type you are? Because if you do, we can mix my blood with yours and see what I might be."

"Why don't you do that with your phone all the time when you can't speak?" Takato asked.

"I hate this voice, and it doesn't always say things right," Naomi's phone said robotically.

"I don't think the blood thing quite works like that," Henry's sister said, "How much blood have you lost?"

"Not a fatal amount, I don't think," Naomi responded through her phone, "I heard of someone this happened to and they were able to do a makeshift blood transfusion."

"'Makeshift blood transfusion' is the most dangerous combination of three words that I have ever heard put together," Henry's sister said, "Please don't do that."

"How do you do it?" Rika asked.

"I don't totally remember, 'cause I just heard this story from my friend about their friends, but I know that first you mix some of both people's blood together and see if it clots. If it does, you're not compatible."

Rika took off her wristband, then took Naomi's knife from her, and cut across her wrist. She then held her arm up so that the blood would drip down it.

Naomi's eyes widened.

Rika took some of the blood from Naomi's shoulder and mixed it with the blood on her arm.

"You don't have to do that," Naomi typed out, "But anyway, just leave it and see if it does anything weird."

They waited a few minutes, and the blood mixture didn't seem to be doing anything.

"That probably means that both of you have the same blood type," Henry's sister said.

"Okay, so what now?" Rika asked Naomi.

"Seriously, that is so dangerous," Henry's sister said.

"Yeah, well, dying is also dangerous," Rika said.

Henry's sister grimaced.

"Now we need at least one syringe, preferably two, and some kind of tube," Naomi typed.

"Huh," Rika said, "What if there isn't that stuff?"

"Honestly, I'll be fine," Naomi typed, "It is stupid and dangerous to do, so we might be better off not trying."

"It's also stupid and dangerous to refuse to go to hospital, and yet you're doing that."

Naomi glared, "Hospital would be worse. Why won't you believe me?"

Rika sighed and said nothing.

Henry came back, holding a first aid kit and some bandages.

"Do you have any syringes?" Rika asked.

"Uh, like the kind with the needles on them? Why?"

"Makeshift blood transfusion," Rika said.

Henry grimaced, "Please don't do that. That's the worst combination of words I've ever heard in my life."

"Yeah, that's what your sister said."

"Well, if you're both completely set on killing each other," Henry's sister said, "I think we might have some, from back when Suzie got a pretty bad infection and she needed to be injected with antibiotics. I don't know, it was complicated, but I think there are some."

"I guess if you can find them, Jaarin…" Henry said to his sister.

She went off to look.

Henry placed the first aid supplies on the ground, "Um, Naomi, I think you're going to have to take your dress off in order for your injury to be bandaged properly. Takato and I will leave the room and either Rika or my sister can do it-"

"No," Naomi typed, and shook her said, "Just leave it. I'll be fine."

Henry left the room and brought Takato with him.

"Naomi, you have to," Rika said, "The dress is partly covering the bullet hole, and I really don't think we could wrap a bandage around it without you taking it off at least halfway."

Naomi burst into tears and started shaking.

Henry's sister came back, holding three syringes and a small, clear rubber tube.

"Here, have fun dying," she said, "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Um, me and Henry told her she has to take her dress off to be able to put anything on the wound."

Henry's sister inspected Naomi, "Yeah, I think you're right. I don't really see how you could wrap anything around that with the dress still on… Are you closest with her?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay, then I guess I'll just leave you both to it. Please don't do anything too stupid or die."

"I'll try," Rika said, as Jaarin left the room, leaving Rika and Naomi alone.

Naomi tried to sit up, but Rika pushed her down.

Naomi screamed as loudly as she could.

Rika grimaced and backed away. What was Naomi's problem?

Then she remembered how Naomi had freaked out about her hair before due to people having forcefully cut it off. Rika realised that it was likely the case that Naomi had had some bad experience in a hospital before, and likely also some bad experience involving people taking her clothes off. She suddenly felt a lot more sympathetic.

"I'm sorry," Rika said, "I shouldn't have pushed you down like that. I just don't want you to hurt yourself. I'm not going to hurt you, okay? I promise," she said gently.

"Yes you are!" Naomi yelled out loud, and sobbed.

"Can you trust me?" Rika asked.

"No!"

"Well, can you trust anyone else?"

"No! Nobody!"

Rika sighed, "Well, you won't go to hospital, but you won't let any of us do anything? Could you go home?"

"It's too far," Naomi said, "How?"

"Yeah, I guess. Do your parents have a car?"

"Yes," Naomi said, but after a few seconds, added, "Wait, that's not what you meant to ask, is it? No."

"What?"

"The answer to the question you said with words is yes, but the answer to the one I think you meant is no."

Rika thought for a minute, "Oh, I think I get it. Does whoever you live with have a car?"

"No."

Rika sighed, "Okay. Then, we really need to figure something out." She picked up two of the syringes, "Okay, how do we do this?"

Naomi reached out, gesturing for Rika to give them to her.

Rika gave her one, and after about a minute, Naomi put it into the vein on her right hand, then pointed to the tube on the ground with her left. Rika gave it to her, and she attached the tube to the needle part of the syringe, after detaching the plastic part.

"Okay, now give me whichever hand you're most comfortable being stabbed in."

Rika held out her left hand, and Naomi took the other syringe from her and put it into the vein on Rika's left hand.

"Okay," Naomi said, "Now we have to do this over and over."

"Do what?" Rika asked, but Naomi answered by doing it. She filled the plastic syringe with Rika's blood, then detached it from the needle and emptied the blood into the plastic tube.

"Oh, I get it," Rika said, "I can do that." She held up the tube with her left hand, while using her right hand to fill it with blood.

"Now it needs pressure to go into me," Naomi said, "So whenever you think you've lost enough blood, fill the rest with water. Like, preferably warm water with a bit of sugar and salt mixed into it. You might need another person to do that, 'cause obviously the tube needs to stay up like that."

Rika nodded, and continued what she was doing until she felt dizzy, "Okay, I really hope we're the same blood type."

Naomi laughed, "Yeah, me too. If we're not, I'll either get really sick, or die."

Rika groaned. She really didn't want to end up killing her friend, but because Naomi was _still_ bleeding, and wouldn't let anyone do anything sensible about it, she was worried Naomi would die of blood loss otherwise.

"Henry, get in here!" Rika yelled, "Or someone, anyway!"

Both Henry and Takato came in.

"Okay," Rika said, "Can one of you get some water, Naomi said it should be warm with some salt and sugar mixed into it, and if you have filtered water or something maybe use that, because we're going to be injecting it into her."

Takato looked shocked, and Henry left to do that.

"Are you okay?" Rika asked Naomi.

"Yeah," she said, "I'm just really dizzy and lightheaded. But I'll be fine."

Henry returned with the water, "I should pour it into the tube, right?"

"Yeah," Naomi said.

"You're both crazy," Henry said, "You know, even if this works, you _are_ still bleeding."

"Well, I'll stop eventually," Naomi said.

Henry poured water into the tube until it was filled.

"Okay, now put the the plastic part from the syringe into the tube and push it down like injecting," Naomi said.

Henry took the syringe from Rika and did that, "Now I assume we have to keep putting more water in until the blood is all in you?"

"Yeah. Though maybe leave it for a while so we can see if I feel sick or anything."

After a few minutes, Naomi said that she didn't feel any worse, so Henry continued to push the blood into Naomi, until the tube only had water in it.

Henry pushed a bit of the water into Naomi, then stopped.

"Yeah, you're done now," she said.

"Okay," he said, "Should I take the needle out?"

"Yeah."

"Alright. Then me and Takato are gonna leave the room again, and so _please_ let Rika put a bandage on you. She'll have given you her blood for nothing if you keep bleeding out, you know."

Naomi said nothing, and Henry removed the needle and tube from her, making sure not to spill the water from it, and he and Takato left the room.

"It's not right to guilt trip you like that," Rika said, "But… He's kinda right."

Naomi groaned and looked away.

"Please? Look, if I could do the bandaging thing with my eyes closed I would. I mean, I don't even know how to do it; it's Henry or his sister who does, but if you aren't comfortable half-removing your dress in front of _me_ when I'm your friend, I assume it would be even worse with them, right?"

Naomi nodded.

Rika sat down on the floor.

"Are you dizzy?" Naomi asked.

"Yeah."

"I guess it would be a waste if I just keep bleeding…" Naomi said, and sat up slightly, "Woah. My vision's gone." She opened and closed her eyes a few times, "Actually, how about this? I'll try to stand up, and then I'll probably black out. Then you or whoever can do whatever you want, and I won't notice or care. You can hurt me or kill me and it won't matter, because I'll be unconscious anyway. Alright?"

"I swear on my life- like, literally- that I won't hurt or kill you, and I won't let anyone else, either. I promise."

Naomi shrugged with her left side, and lay back down.

"But yeah, if you're willing to do that- and that's the only compromise you're willing to make- then yeah, that's a good idea," Rika said, and went to go get Henry's sister.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter manages to be both unrealistic and offensive at the same time, but I couldn't really think of any different way for it to go, or any better way to do it. I'm transgender too, but that doesn't really excuse my cliched/stereotypical revealing of it and bad phrasing, nor make it less potentially offensive, so I apologise for everything that is wrong with this chapter. The same applies to parts of the next one, too.

Rika returned with Henry's sister.

"Okay," Naomi said, then forced herself to stand up using both arms, and abruptly passed out and collapsed, landing half on the sofa and half on the floor.

"...Alright, then," Jaarin said, and went over to Naomi, "I'll hold up her arms, and you take off her dress. Then we can put her up against the sofa, and I'll bandage her shoulder."

"Sounds good," Rika said.

Both of them went quiet when they removed Naomi's dress. Immediately Rika understood what Naomi had been so worried about; she had a completely flat chest, and seemed to have a male body, for lack of a better term.

Why hadn't Naomi just _told_ Rika that she was transgender? Assuming that that was the case, of course. Rika stepped back, while Jaarin quickly cleaned the blood off Naomi's shoulder and began bandaging the wound.

"I don't know what to think now," Rika said.

"I guess that's what her problem was," Jaarin replied, "But whatever. I don't know her, you do. I just know that she's injured, and I feel like I should try and fix this up for her as fast as I can before she wakes up."

"Hang on," Rika said, and went over to Naomi.

Jaarin stepped back, and Rika grabbed Naomi and lifted her so that she was standing. Naomi seemed to go more limp than she already had been, and Rika put her back down the way she had been.

"I think that should give us more time," she said.

"Yeah, I think so…" Jaarin said, and continued what she was doing. She then put Naomi's dress halfway onto her, and Rika went over to help her get it all the way on.

The two of them then lifted Naomi back onto the sofa and laid her down.

"I was thinking of giving her some clean clothes," Jaarin said, "But I don't think we'd have time before she wakes up. Maybe when she wakes up I will."

"Nah," Rika said, "She really likes that dress. I'll just take her back to my house and give her another one of my dresses, 'cause I think she'd like that."

Jaarin smiled, "Alright."

Naomi shifted slightly and looked like she was going to wake up, and Jaarin left the room.

Rika wasn't sure what she'd say. She wanted to ask Naomi why she couldn't have just told her this instead of going through such a convoluted sequence of events, but she figured that maybe this had happened before and it had gone badly. Maybe that was why people had forcefully cut Naomi's hair off before. And it would also explain why Naomi had said that she felt insecure about people thinking she looked like a boy.

Naomi opened her eyes. She looked at Rika, then looked down at herself and noticed the bandage on her shoulder. She blushed and looked away.

"Do you wanna talk about it? Or do you wanna have this conversation some other time? Also, Henry's sister said she could give you clean clothes without blood on them, if you want."

Naomi just looked away.

"At least answer the last question."

"I like this dress," Naomi signed, "And there's no point."

"Okay. And don't sign with your right arm, you'll make it worse."

"Sorry," Naomi signed.

Henry and Takato came back in.

"Is she okay?" Takato asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Rika said, "Except she seems to pass out every time she tries to sit up."

"That's… Not really being okay," Henry said.

Rika grimaced, "Yeah, I know. But I feel like it's as good as we're going to get if she won't go to hospital. Will you?" she addressed Naomi.

Naomi shook her head, and Rika shrugged.

"I can go home," Naomi signed.

"How?" Rika asked.

"Renamon," Naomi spelled out.

"That's a good idea, actually," Rika said, "Can you give her directions to your house as she carries you?"

Naomi nodded.


	7. Chapter 7

For the next week or so, there was no sign of Naomi in school or anywhere else, though she still occasionally texted Rika.

"I wonder what happened to that new girl," Rika heard someone in her class say, "I wonder if she just dropped out."

Rika turned to her, "She's injured," she said, "I'm sure she'll be back soon."

"How do you know?" one girl asked.

"Yeah," another added, "Does she talk to you or something?"

Rika nodded, "Kinda. Just, she'll be fine. She hasn't left school or anything."

Rika was actually slightly worried about Naomi. Not just because of the bullet wound, but because Naomi didn't seem to want to talk to her that much, and refused to answer anything Rika asked her, or meet up with her at all. Obviously she did need to stay home and recover, but Rika missed her, and wished she would just talk to her.

Rika sighed sadly. She didn't even want to care about or miss anyone this much, but she did. She really liked Naomi, and not getting to see her or talk to her made her sad.

* * *

 

When she got home from school, she texted Naomi again.

"I miss you, when are you gonna be back in school?"

Naomi replied soon enough, "Soon."

Rika sighed, "And I can't go see you?"

"Nope."

"I really miss you."

"Do you really still like me?"

"Yes, of course."

Naomi didn't reply again until about five minutes later, "If you promise you don't hate me then could I go to your house?"

"Yeah, sure. Do you want me to send Renamon to get you?"

"That would be pretty cool, yeah. I'll see you soon, I guess, then."

Rika told Renamon to go bring Naomi here, then smiled to herself. She was really happy that Naomi still wanted to be friends. She felt pathetic that one person could bring out so much happiness in her, but in a way, she didn't mind. In fact, she almost felt justified in it since she'd given Naomi her blood, so since Naomi now had a part of her physically, maybe it made some sense that she had a part of her emotionally, too.

Soon, Renamon arrived with Naomi, and put her down in Rika's room with her, then disappeared.

Rika smiled, "Hi."

Naomi blushed and sat down on the floor.

Rika sat down too, "How's your shoulder?"

Naomi shrugged with her left side, then looked away.

"Is whoever you live with taking care of it?"

Naomi nodded.

"Did they ask what happened?"

Naomi nodded again.

"What did you say?"

Naomi shrugged with her left side.

"So, uh," Rika said, "Do you wanna talk about…? You know?"

Naomi looked down, then signed, "You want to."

"Yeah, kinda," Rika said, "Is that okay?"

"What is there to say?" Naomi said quietly and blushed, "I just don't exist the way people think I should."

"Oh, is that what you meant when you said that before?"

Naomi nodded.

"What do you mean?"

"People think that to be a girl you have to have one really specific kind of body, and that if you have a different specific kind of body- like I do- then you can't be a girl and you have to be a boy. It really annoys me. I don't like being forced to act like I'm a different gender just because I don't look the way people think I should."

"...I never thought about it that way," Rika said, "I knew transgender people existed, but- I don't know what I thought."

Naomi shrugged, "Yeah, I know. But people also really like killing people like me."

"So that's why you're convinced that if we called an ambulance they'd kill you, and that I would kill you or hurt you if I found out?"

Rika honestly thought Naomi was being a bit paranoid. Not everyone was a potential murderer, even if they were intolerant.

Naomi nodded, "Yeah. Nobody's _killed_ me yet- obviously- but they've done pretty much everything else." She shuddered.

"I don't know what to say."

Naomi shrugged.

The two of them were silent for a while.

"So, if a girl liked you, would that make her gay or straight?"

Naomi rolled her eyes, "What do you think? Though I don't know how this hypothetical girl personally defines herself, but she would be whatever she says she is."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant, and I said, what do you think? That wasn't a rhetorical question."

"I guess…" Rika thought for a minute. She wasn't sure, actually. Naomi _was_ a girl, but she had the body associated with boys. But she _had_ just said that that didn't change the fact that she was a girl.

"I guess it would make the hypothetical girl gay?" Rika said.

Naomi smiled, "In the same way as I'm a lesbian because I'm a girl and I like other girls, yeah, that's how I'd see it. Except obviously if someone liked me we wouldn't know if they liked other girls, or boys, or what. So you can't _actually_ say."

"I think you're taking it a bit too literally," Rika said.

Naomi grinned, "I'm autistic, it's my job."

Rika laughed.

Naomi looked away, "Do you still like me? Am I still your friend? Do you still see me the same?"

"Yeah," Rika said, "I definitely still like you. I was worrying that _you_ didn't want to be friends with _me_. And… I don't know."

Naomi looked sad, "Am I still a girl to you?"

Rika nodded slowly, "Yeah. I just… Know more about you now, I guess."

Naomi grinned, "So now if you ever wanted to picture me naked, you can do it accurately?"

Rika blushed furiously and looked away. What she supposed to say to that?

Naomi laughed, "Though you can visualise hypothetical situations however you want, really."

Rika looked briefly back to Naomi, then went even redder and looked away again. Now she couldn't help but imagine Naomi naked.

"...Was that inappropriate?" Naomi asked, "I'm sorry if it was."

"No, it's fine, I know you're joking," Rika said, "Actually, can I ask an inappropriate question?"

"Sure."

Rika blushed more, "So, do you have a penis?"

"Yes. If we're asking those kinds of questions, do you have a vagina?"

"Um, y-yeah. Are you going to ask me one question for each one I ask you?"

Naomi laughed.

"Never mind," Rika said, "I don't think I have any more questions like that. I do have another question though; is your shoulder any better?"

"Yeah," Naomi said, "It doesn't hurt as much. It's not bleeding, obviously. It's fine, I just can't really move my right arm a whole lot. My friend's been rebandaging it pretty much every day."

"Is that who you live with?"

"Yeah."

"What did you say happened?"

Naomi shrugged with her left side and smiled, "I just said I couldn't say, and he was like, okay."

"Seriously? But it was a bullet wound!"

"Yeah, but he knew I wasn't gonna say. And we live in a pretty bad area, so it's not _too_ implausible that I could've got shot by accident or something."

Rika just stared in shock.

Naomi shrugged, "It's not a big deal."

Rika's mother came into the room then, "Oh, when did you get here?"

Naomi signed, "Earlier."

"She doesn't understand sign language," Rika said to Naomi, then turned to her mom, "A while ago."

"Oh, okay. Are you going to stay for dinner?"

Naomi signed, "If that's okay."

"She said, 'If that's okay,'" Rika said.

"Of course it is," Rika's mother said, "You're Rika's friend. Okay, I guess I'll just leave you both." She left the room then.

"Can I ask you something else?"

"Yeah," Naomi said, "But if it's inappropriate then I'm gonna echo it back at you."

"Okay. Do you pee standing up?"

Naomi sighed, "Sometimes, yeah. Do you?"

"Well, I kinda can't."

"Have you tried?" Naomi laughed, "It's meant to be possible for people with vaginas to pee standing up, but I don't know."

"No, I haven't tried. I don't know, it sounds difficult."

"It probably is, yeah. Hey, have more wild digimon still been appearing?"

Rika nodded, "Yeah, but not as often, and they're back to one at a time. They're _still_ Kurisarimons every time, though! I wonder why that is."

"Hmm, conspiracy," Naomi said.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure _something_ is wrong. But I have no idea what it could be."

"I'm really sorry for messing everything up last time," Naomi said, and looked down.

Rika went over to Naomi and hugged her, though tried not to put any pressure on her right side.

"It's okay," Rika said, "We survived fine and destroyed it fine. It wasn't your fault, anyway. And either way, you're the one who suffered most badly from it. Why did you jump in front of Impmon, anyway?"

"It's like I said at the time; if he'd gotten hit by that bullet, I'm pretty sure he would've exploded into data. Whereas all that could happen to me was that it would get lodged into me, and as you can see, I'm fine now. Priorities, basically."

"You're more important than Impmon," Rika said.

Naomi smiled, "Thank you. But like I said, I'm fine."

Rika squeezed Naomi's left shoulder, "Yeah, but you might not have been. You could've died."

"But I didn't. And you saved me. I really appreciate you giving me your blood," she laughed, "Now I have a part of you in me, though I know that sounds creepy."

Rika half-smiled, "Yeah, it does sound a bit creepy. But it's true."

Rika suddenly felt a strange feeling. She recognised it as the same feeling she'd felt a while ago, when she'd looked at Naomi wearing the dress with the purple stars and had been captivated by how pretty she looked. She looked pretty this time, too, though she was wearing her usual pink denim dress, combined with a white t-shirt and white legging-shorts under it. Her hair was still purple, but she must have been re-dyeing it, because it was nearly down to her shoulders now; almost twice as long as when Rika had first spoken to her.

Rika's stomach flipped, and she looked away. She needed to stop staring at her friend like this. It was creepy. Not only that, but it was pathetic. She didn't want to have all of these feelings, whatever they were.

Naomi tilted her head slightly to one side, "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah," Rika said, blushing.

"I'm confused. Are you sure?"

Rika nodded, "Yeah, don't worry."

"You can tell me what's wrong if you want," Naomi said, "Unless it's that you think I'm gross and don't want to talk to me again. But you already said you don't think that."

"No, it's not that."

"So there _is_ something?"

Rika blushed, and sighed in frustration, "Fine, I'll tell you! Or I'll try, because I don't totally understand it myself. I think you're really, really pretty. Sometimes when I look at you it's like something about you sucks me in and I can't look away, and it gives me such a weird feeling. I really, _really_ like you."

Naomi blushed and smiled, "Oh."

Rika looked away.

"Can I do something you might not like?" Naomi asked.

"I… Guess?" Rika said hesitantly.

Naomi came nearer to Rika and gently held onto her, then leaned closer and briefly kissed her on the lips.

Rika's heart beat faster and she couldn't think straight. Had Naomi seriously just _kissed her?_ But she'd actually kind of liked it.

Naomi pulled away, "I- I'm not really sure why I did that," she said.

"I liked it," Rika said quietly.

Naomi blushed and nodded.

"Did you like it too?"

Naomi shrugged, but nodded, "I've never kissed a girl before. Well, I have, but she considered me a boy so I don't count it."

Rika laughed, "Why don't you count it?"

"I didn't really like her. Like I _couldn't_ like her since I felt like she didn't even know me. And I feel like it wasn't me that kissed her, it was someone else. The person she saw me as and that everyone thought I was. Sorry, I'm not trying to be metaphorical, but that must sound really weird."

"Yeah, it does. I don't really get it."

"I don't know," Naomi said, "Like, you're a digimon tamer. But you have to pretend you're not, and nearly nobody knows that you are. So doesn't it feel like you're hiding a part of yourself from most people, and that only the people who know about it _really_ know you?"

Rika nodded slowly, "Yeah, I see what you mean now. But I don't think about it like that. It's a nuisance to hide it sometimes, but it's not like part of my identity."

"Well, I guess it would be like if you _did_ consider it part of your identity. Or if like, the whole world was split into tamers and non-tamers, and you always had to be in the wrong category and you were the only one who knew you were being inaccurate. I don't know, this analogy is starting to make a lot less sense."

"I think I get it," Rika said, "Hey, have you ever kissed a boy?"

"Not romantically," Naomi said, "I've kissed my friends like for 'practice' and as platonic affection. Obviously I only mean like the way I kissed you just there," she grinned.

"All your friends are boys?"

"Outside of school and you and your friends, yeah. I don't hang out with them as much now since I switched schools, though I do live with one of them, like I said. Maybe you could meet them sometime, I don't know."

"Yeah, maybe," Rika said, "And platonic kissing? I've never heard of that. Well, I know family kisses can be a thing."

Naomi nodded, "Yeah, it's exactly like that! I know most people think it's weird, though."

Rika was actually slightly jealous. She was never that close with anyone, not even her own family. She didn't have any friends that she was even remotely that close with, except Naomi, she supposed. Except… She was now pretty sure that it wasn't exactly a _friend_ that she thought of Naomi as. She couldn't help but blush at that.

"I wish I could read your mind," Naomi said, "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah. I was just thinking… The only close friend I really have is you. Actually, no, Renamon too. But the thing is, I- I don't think I like you as just a friend."

"I did kinda gather that from the 'You're so pretty and I really like you,' thing. And how you said you liked it when I kissed you," Naomi grinned.

Rika noticed her heart was beating faster again, and she was shaking slightly. This was terrifying. She'd never been this honest and emotionally vulnerable to anyone before, and she made a point of avoiding it. But something about Naomi… Well, she'd been over this many times before. There was _something_ about Naomi.

"So, uh, what do you think of me, then?"

Naomi's eyes widened slightly and ran her hand through her hair, "Um, how honest do you want me to be? Like a hundred percent, or more than that?"

"Try a hundred percent first," Rika said.

"Okay. In that case, I like you very much platonically, and I think I like you romantically, too."

Rika half-smiled, "Okay, so what's above a hundred percent honesty?"

"Well…" Naomi looked away, "I don't know if I like you because I like _you_ specifically, or just because you're the only girl who sees me as a girl and likes me."

"I think you're overthinking it. Do you like me as a friend because you like _me_ specifically?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'm just gonna take your one hundred percent answer as the real one, since I think your second answer is just really overanalysing."

Naomi shrugged, "Yeah, maybe. So… Now what?" She blushed.

"I don't know." Rika blushed too, and looked away.

Rika felt slightly awkward now. She felt kinda like she should ask Naomi to go out with her, or be together, or something like that. She assumed Naomi was thinking the same thing.

"So, uh," Rika said, "Do you want to be together or something?"

"Yeah, I guess," Naomi said, "We can just try it out for now."

Rika nodded, "Okay."

Naomi looked like she was thinking, "Hmm. Do you want to kiss again?" she smiled.

Rika didn't respond out loud, but leaned closer to Naomi and kissed her on the lips. They kissed for a lot longer this time, and Rika felt the same way as she'd felt before- like Naomi was captivating her. But this time, it wasn't what she looked like. It was the feeling of her lips on Rika's, and how close their faces were together. It was perfect. Nothing could be better than this, Rika thought.

Naomi slowly pulled away, "Th-that- Y-yeah," she stammered, blushing, "I- I think I liked that too much."

Rika grinned, "How much is too much?"

Naomi covered her face but said nothing.

"Are you okay?"

Naomi nodded, and shifted positions a bit, "M-maybe I should leave."

Rika was disappointed now, "Do you want to?"

"No, I just feel bad."

"Because you liked that… Too much? I liked it a lot too, you know."

"Too much," Naomi said, then lay down on the floor and pulled her knees to her chest.

Rika lay down next to her, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, don't worry. I don't think I've ever liked anything that much," Naomi smiled.

"Yeah," Rika smiled back, "Me neither."


	8. Chapter 8

Another wild digimon didn’t appear for over a week, but when it did, Yamaki was there by the time Rika, Naomi and the others got there.

Naomi just stared at Yamaki, “Who’s that?” she signed to Rika.

“Uh,” Rika replied, “It’s some government guy that likes to harass us because he doesn’t like digimon.”

Yamaki glared at the tamers, though it was hard to tell through his sunglasses, “What is the meaning of this?”

“Of what?” Takato asked.

“The same type of wild ones appearing every time! I wasn’t sure at first, but now I’ve confirmed that every time it’s the exact same one!”

“How would we know?” Henry asked, “We’re wondering that too.”

Naomi signed something that Rika didn’t understand.

“What?” Rika asked.

“Conspiracy,” Naomi spelled out.

“It won’t go down well if you say that,” Rika signed back.

Naomi laughed, and signed, “I can’t speak right now, anyway.”

“What are they doing?” Yamaki asked, looking at Rika and Naomi.

Henry and Takato just shrugged.

The fog cleared from the digital field to reveal yet another Kurisarimon, to no-one’s surprise.

Yamaki took out something that looked like a taser, and held it out towards the Kurisarimon, as if he was trying to scan it.

“Data crusher!” Kurisarimon launched a ball of electricity in Yamaki’s direction.

“Bunny blast!” Terriermon intercepted Kurisarimon’s attack before it could hit Yamaki.

Yamaki stepped back, shaking slightly, “Why did you do that?”

“What, did you think we’d let it hit you, just because you annoy us sometimes?” Terriermon asked.

“I didn’t think- Are digimon really capable of _compassion_? Towards _humans_?”

Rika rolled her eyes, then signed to Naomi, “He’s like Impmon but backwards.”

Naomi laughed and signed back, “You’re right.”

“We’ve been through this so many times, with so many people,” Rika said to Yamaki, “Including me, before. But yeah, of course digimon are capable of compassion, just like humans are.”

Yamaki stared at Kurisarimon, “Then why isn’t this one?”

“Maybe it is, I don’t know. But most  _ wild _ digimon that appear seem to have something against humans,” Rika said.

As if on cue, Impmon ran over.

Naomi waved to him, and he froze.

“I’m glad you’re okay, you idiot,” he said to her quietly, then gestured to Yamaki, “Who’s this clown?”

Naomi burst out laughing, and enthusiastically flapped her hands in front of her face.

Impmon and Yamaki stared at her, while Takato and Henry tried not to.

“What’s so funny?” Rika asked, smiling.

Naomi signed a response, but Rika couldn’t understand it because Naomi was still flapping her hands.

“You might have to stop doing that while you sign,” Rika said.

Naomi made a heart shape with her hands then made it break, but signed, “I said that it reminded me of a joke I heard before.”

“Ah, okay.”

Naomi grinned and resumed flapping one hand.

“I don’t understand most of what just happened,” Impmon said.

“We don’t have much more of answer than you do,” Rika said, “He’s just some guy. I don’t know.”

Yamaki sighed angrily, “You may call me Yamaki. I work for an organisation called Hypnos, and we are responsible for controlling things,” he gestured to Kurisarimon, “Like this.”

Naomi signed to Rika, “Tell him they don’t do a good job.”

“He knows that, don’t worry.”

Naomi wandered a bit nearer to Kurisarimon, then threw her knife into its eyes.

“Oh my god!” Yamaki cried out, as Kurisarimon began flailing erratically and shooting electricity in every direction.

Impmon ran over, “Summon flame!” He threw the fireball at Kurisarimon, shattering it into data.

Yamaki took out his device again, and sucked the data into it.

“Like ghostbusters,” Naomi said out loud, then went to retrieve her knife.

“That’s not my intention,” Yamaki said.

“Ghostbuster!” Naomi replied.

Yamaki growled, “Anyway, I’m going to analyse this data and see if there’s anything abnormal about it compared to previous anomalies.”

Naomi tilted her head, “Aren’t all anomalies abnormal by definition, compared to something?”

“...Yes, but- You know what I mean. I meant compared to the usual ones.”

Naomi shrugged with her left side, then went back over to Rika.

Impmon followed her, “Is your shoulder still injured?”

“It’s okay,” she said, “It barely hurts anymore. I’ve just gotten really used to not moving my right arm a lot.”

“You didn’t have to do that for me. I owe you my life now, and the last thing I want is to owe my life to some human!”

Naomi grinned, “Well, I’m not like most humans, if that helps. I’m only one in some statistic.”

“What’s the statistic?” Rika asked.

“Nobody knows, really. And you can’t just get the probability of a,” Naomi spelled out, “Trans” then continued speaking, “And autistic person by multiplying the two probabilities together like you would for most things, because there’s a lot of overlap. I might be like one percent of the population or less, but I don’t know.”

“Well,” Rika said, then signed, “You’re one in seven billion to me, because you’re the only person I really like.”

Naomi blushed and looked away.

“That was really cheesy, and I meant to phrase it better, but you get the idea.”

“Yes,” Naomi laughed.

Without saying anything, Yamaki walked away.


	9. Chapter 9

That Saturday night, Naomi stayed over at Rika's house, as she'd been doing a lot recently. The two of them slept on mattresses on the floor that were so close together that they were effectively sharing a bed.

At about two in the morning, Rika's digivice beeped, waking them both up.

Rika groaned, "Not again! I am so tired of this!"

"Can they do it?"

"The others? No, I don't think it would be fair to just let them deal with it."

Naomi groaned and covered her face with her arm.

"You don't have to come, you know."

"I want to," Naomi said, "If you're going. But I don't want to."

Rika sighed, "Yeah, I don't want to either. But I have to. What if Takato and Henry couldn't handle it? What if the digimon killed people or something?"

"I guess."

* * *

They arrived at the digital field at the same time as Takato and Henry, but to all of their surprise, Yamaki had gotten there before them, and the digimon was already gone.

"Ghostbuster," Naomi said.

"I'm not a ghostbuster!" Yamaki said, "I'm a government agent!"

Naomi laughed and flapped both hands, "I didn't know the government hired ghostbusters!"

Yamaki sighed but said nothing.

"Wouldn't he actually be a digimon-buster?" Takato asked.

"Hmm. I guess so," Naomi said.

"Speaking of which," Rika said, "How did you do that? What did you do?"

"I just increased the strength of the data-gathering device I already had, so that it would be strong enough to pull apart the data of any digimon I point it at, as opposed to the data needing to be loose or unstable already for it to work," Yamaki said, "It was surprisingly simple."

"So why the ghosts- I mean, digimon?" Naomi asked.

"Do you mean have I determined what's different about these particular wild ones as opposed to the ones that used to appear?"

"Yes."

"The answer to that is no, not yet. Hopefully, the more data I can gather, the more information will be available to us."

"Wouldn't the data just be identical, since they're all the same digimon?" Naomi asked.

"I don't think so," Henry said, "I feel like that's like asking, 'Don't all humans have the same DNA sequence?'. There'd be a lot of similarities, but each individual digimon is different. Like," he patted Terriermon, "A different Terriermon might have a different personality to this one, and I feel like that would be reflected in their data."

Yamaki nodded slowly, "Yes, I would speculate- based on what little research we have- that two digimon of the same species would have slightly different data, in the same way as two identical products would have different serial numbers to identify them."

Naomi nodded, "Okay."

"Actually, Yamaki," Henry said, "Why are you being so polite to us, all of a sudden?"

Yamaki hesitated, "You've had more success than I and Hypnos have had in getting rid of the dangerous digimon that threaten the city. Our ultimate objective seems to be the same: to protect civilians. I didn't want to consider the possibility that a group of children who partnered themselves with the very root of the problem might be doing my own job better than I am, but…"

"But we are?" Takato said.

Yamaki glared through his sunglasses, "For now, yes."

Naomi poked Rika to get her attention, "It's over now, right? Can we go home? I'm tired."

"Yeah, don't worry," Rika said, "We'll leave soon," she turned to address Yamaki, "So, the digimon that appeared just now was another Kurisarimon, right?"

Yamaki nodded.

"That's what I figured, but I just wanted to confirm."

"Anyway, yes, we are done here," Yamaki said, and left.

"Well, that was a waste of getting up and sneaking out," Takato said.

Naomi just yawned.

"Yeah, you've got that right," Rika said.

* * *

 

Back at Rika's house, Rika lay awake as Naomi drifted in and out of sleep beside her.

"Can I hug you?" Naomi asked Rika.

"Of course," Rika said, and pulled Naomi close.

Naomi leaned her head on Rika's shoulder, and tried to prevent her eyes from closing, "Keep me awake," she said.

Rika responded by kissing Naomi.

Naomi laughed, "Okay, I'm a little more awake now."

"I just can't sleep," Rika said.

"Any reason?"

"I don't think so. I guess I was expecting a fight, so now I can't go back to sleep again."

Naomi looked like she was thinking, "Hmm, fight?" she said, then started laughing.

"What's so funny?"

Naomi grinned, "I'm thinking badly."

Rika wondered if Naomi was being intentionally vague, or if "thinking badly" really was the best way to describe it.

"What do you mean?"

Naomi just laughed, "It's not as bad if you say it."

"I've no idea what you mean."

"That's fine. So you don't want to really fight, or anything that could maybe… Metaphorically resemble it?"

What metaphorically resembled fighting? It really was hard to follow Naomi's train of thought sometimes.

"No, I don't," Rika said, "I just mean I got an adrenaline rush from my digivice going off, and it hasn't worn off yet."

"Oh, right. Can I kiss you?"

Rika blushed, "Yeah, sure. You don't have to ask, you know."

Naomi said nothing, but turned towards Rika and kissed her.

Both girls blushed as they pulled apart.

"...Is that what you meant by metaphorically resembling fighting?"

Naomi laughed, "Yeah, kinda!"

Rika thought for a second, and realised that Naomi had probably been referring to something sexual, if that was what she had meant by "bad thoughts". She blushed and looked away.

"Oh, so you do get it. Sorry for being inappropriate, it's just what I thought of," Naomi said.

"I don't mind, but it would be easier if you just said what you were thinking instead of making me guess."

"But it's better that way."

"Me guessing what you mean is the same as you saying it, it just takes longer. You're still the one having sexual thoughts."

Naomi blushed slightly and looked confused, "But how is it the same if you say it, and not me?"

"Never mind," Rika said, and kissed Naomi on the cheek.

Naomi smiled and hugged Rika, "Yay!"

Rika leaned into Naomi, and the two of them fell asleep in that position.


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning, Rika and Naomi woke up to Rika's digivice going off.

"I am getting so tired of this! It never stops!" Rika yelled in frustration.

Naomi stared at her, looking startled and slowly flapped one hand.

"I was going to say I want to kill these digimon, but I guess we have to go to the digital field to do that."

Naomi laughed.

"Sorry if I scared you, by the way," Rika said.

"It's okay, I just don't like yelling."

"Sorry. Anyway, let's go."

* * *

When they got to the digital field, Yamaki, Takato and Henry were already there. This time there wasn't just one Kurisarimon, but four, and an Infermon.

"Will you ghostbust them this time?" Naomi asked Yamaki.

"The fact that there's so many of them so close together is throwing off my device," he said.

"Hmm, how did Infermon get killed last time?" Naomi asked, "Do I have to get shot again?"

Naomi trailed off, then froze, staring at Infermon.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Takato asked, "You look really pale or something."

"I don't want to get shot again!" Naomi shrieked and started to cry.

Rika went over to Naomi and hugged her, "You don't have to get shot. Nobody's going to let that happen. That wasn't part of the plan last time, remember? It just happened. So you don't have to do it again."

Naomi hugged Rika tightly and said nothing.

"Oh yeah," Henry said, "What we did last time was turn all the digimon into rubber so the attacks wouldn't affect them as much, then got Growlmon to cut through Infermon's neck cord. But I don't know how easily we can do that this time, with all those Kurisarimons."

Naomi pulled away from Rika shakily, "I can stab one for numbers? Maybe ghostbuster could, too? Hmm."

"By 'ghostbuster', do you mean me?" Yamaki asked.

"Yes."

"I'm sure I told you before, but my name is Yamaki."

Just then, Impmon arrived.

"Yay!" Naomi said.

Impmon looked at all the digimon, then back at Naomi, "Don't you do anything so stupid this time, okay?"

"Don't worry! Now you're here, if me and you and Terriermon and Renamon stab one each, while Growlmon gets Infermon, that should work! But again, the timing needs to be perfect, and… That didn't go so well last time. Maybe we shouldn't follow my plans," Naomi said, becoming more sad, "Maybe following my plans messes up things and gets me shot," she shuddered.

"No," Rika said, "I told you, it wasn't your fault. And I know _I_ can't think of a better plan. The only problem I have with this one is that it involves you being in danger again. Unless…" she turned to Yamaki, "Do you want to stab one of the Kurisarimons in the eye, instead of Naomi? It weakens them."

Yamaki looked slightly taken aback, "I'm not sure if I want to put myself in that much danger, honestly."

"So you'd rather Naomi be in that much danger instead?"

Yamaki hesitated, "Well… I…"

They were interrupted by Infermon, "Network grenade!"

Naomi screamed and threw herself to the ground, and Henry, Takato and Rika all reflexively swiped a card simultaneously, "Digi modify! Rubber activate!"

"Digi modify! Digivolution activate!"

The bullet flew past all of them and hit into a building.

Rika glanced at Naomi, who was still on the ground and covering her ears, then turned to Yamaki, "If you want these digimon to be defeated, you're going to have to help, because Naomi's strategy is the only one we have."

"Fine," Yamaki said, and took out a small knife.

The digimon and Yamaki quickly stabbed the four Kurisarimons in the eye, while Growlmon attempted to cut Infermon's neck cord.

Once the four Kurisarimons' data was unstable, Yamaki took out his device and sucked all of the data into it.

However, Growlmon didn't get to Infermon's neck cord fast enough, and Infermon brought its head and legs into its body, like a cocoon.

Naomi slowly got up off the ground, and stood back up.

"Are you okay?" Rika asked.

Naomi nodded, and signed, "Just scared."

Rika swiped a card, "Digi modify! Digivolution activate!"

Renamon digivolved into Kyuubimon.

"Foxtail inferno!" Kyuubimon threw flames at Infermon, but unsurprisingly, the attack had no effect.

"Woah!" Terriermon yelled out suddenly, and covered his ears. The rest of the digimon reacted similarly.

"What is it? I don't hear anything," Henry said.

Naomi stiffened and covered her ears too. She turned to stare at Infermon, "Why is it buzzing like that?" she whispered.

"Infermon is… Buzzing?" Rika said.

"Yes," Kyuubimon said, "He must be preparing for another attack."

As soon as she finished saying that, the buzzing stopped, and the digimon and Naomi visibly relaxed, but less than a second later, Infermon launched himself at Kyuubimon at full speed.

Naomi screamed again.

"Kyuubimon!" Rika cried out, as Kyuubimon was sent flying. She ran over to her partner, who devolved into Renamon as soon as she hit the ground.

"Are you okay?" Rika asked.

Renamon groaned, "I'm… Fine," she said weakly, but didn't move.

Rika took out her cards and flicked through them frantically, trying to find one that might help.

Infermon kept its head in its cocoon position, but put its limbs back out of its body and onto the ground.

Naomi glared at Infermon, and took out her knife. She quickly slashed the cord of one of Infermon's legs, but only got halfway through.

Infermon quickly retracted its limbs again, and Naomi dropped her knife.

"Didn't I just tell you not to do stupid things?" Impmon said.

"I do what I want!" Naomi said, but was trembling.

"Oh yeah? Then why do you look so scared?" Impmon laughed.

"I still did what I wanted, didn't I?"

"Network grenade!" Infermon shot a bullet in a random direction, hitting a building again.

Yamaki aimed his device at Infermon, but it did nothing. He then took out a headset, and pressed some buttons on it, "Riley, send me some backup. Just give the experimental devices to some of the researchers and tell them to get to the coordinates I'm about to send you as soon as they can, okay?"

Infermon spun around to face Growlmon, who immediately attacked.

"Pyro blaster!"

But again, it did nothing.

"Digi modify! Digivolution activate!"

Terriermon digivolved to Gargomon.

"Gargo laser!"

Unsurprisingly, once again, the attack had no effect, and Infermon launched himself at Growlmon this time.

Growlmon fell to the ground and devolved into Guilmon.

Takato ran over, "Guilmon, no!"

"Bunny pummel!" Gargomon punched Infermon, who remained unaffected.

"Gargomon, that probably wasn't a good idea," Henry said, "He might just attack you now, too."

"What else was I meant to do?" Gargomon asked, "I'm the only one left!"

"Hey, what about me?" Impmon yelled, "I can take him."

"And _you_ were telling _Naomi_ not to do stupid things?" Gargomon said.

"She's a human, that's different!"

Naomi looked around at everyone, while nervously tapping the fingers of both hands against themselves.

"Network grenade!" Infermon shot a bullet at Gargomon, who just about managed to dodge it.

"Summon flame!" Impmon threw a fireball at Infermon, which did nothing.

Naomi picked her knife up, and fidgeted with it, then put it in her pocket.

Rika went back over to the others, "I'm not sure what to do. Renamon's too injured to fight again, so Guilmon probably is too, so we're left with… Impmon and Gargomon. Who could be taken out at any minute."

"You are correct," Naomi signed.

Rika half-smiled.

"If Infermon had some kind of weakness or letting his guard down," Naomi signed, "Maybe something."

"What did she say?" Henry asked.

"She said, if Infermon had some kind of weakness or opening then we might have an opportunity, basically," Rika said.

Rika repeated what Naomi signed, "Like maybe if he was halfway through shooting a bullet, we could get something into his mouth maybe?" Naomi looked over to Infermon, "Unless he can hear and understand us."

As if in response, Infermon shot out another bullet, "Network grenade!"

"Badda boom!" Impmon threw a fireball into Infermon's mouth.

Infermon began to flail his limbs around, while making electronic-sounding choking noises, with sparks flying off him.

"Digi modify!" Naomi said.

Impmon gave her a weird look.

"I like saying that!" she laughed.

Infermon continued to crackle and make noises, but pulled its limbs into its body and began to buzz. This time the buzzing was at a frequency that everyone could hear.

"Oh wow, so that's what you guys were hearing before!" Takato said, as he covered his ears.

Infermon tried to launch itself in some direction, but ended up flying off in a random direction and falling onto the ground.

"Right," Yamaki said, "Maybe this device will work now."

He aimed the device at Infermon, but it still didn't work.

"Where do they come from?" Naomi asked.

"The digimon?" Rika said, "The digital world, I guess?"

"I want an explanation."

"Yeah, so do we all."

"I have researchers working on that," Yamaki said.

"Just ask them. Whoever 'them' is," Naomi said.

"Yes, that's what we would do, if we knew who 'they' were."

Infermon flailed its limbs violently, and flopped around on the ground while sending sparks everywhere.

Yamaki started fidgeting with his device, presumably changing the settings, "Right, maybe it will work now."

He pointed it at Infermon, but it still had no effect. He sighed.

"Gargo laser!" Gargomon shot at Infermon, and the attack seemed to actually do some damage this time, now that Infermon was so weakened.

"Summon flame!" Impmon launched a fireball at Infermon, who finally began to flicker in and out of existence.

"Right, now it _has_ to work!" Yamaki said, and quickly sucked Infermon's data into his device.

"Yay!" Naomi said, bouncing up and down and flapping her hands, "We did it! But I feel bad, he died so slowly. I wonder if it hurt."

"You know he was trying to kill us, right?" Rika said.

"Yeah, I know. But he seemed confused towards the end, like he didn't know what he was doing. Maybe it was an accident."

"We can't just _not_ kill the digimon that come here," Rika said, "If we did that, then they'd be free to run around and kill as many people as they wanted. Even if they don't know what they're doing, we can't let that happen."

Henry turned to Naomi, "I don't like violence at all, you know. I never wanted to let Terriermon fight the wild digimon, or even for anyone to fight at all. But I realised pretty fast that they really would just kill innocent people if we didn't stop them. If there was a humane way to do that, I'd be in favour of it, but I don't think there is."

Naomi shrugged and said nothing.

"Digimon live to fight," Impmon chimed in, "That's the whole point! To get stronger. Digimon coming here just gives me more opportunity to make sure I become the strongest! Or at least, it would if 'Ghostbuster' over there didn't keep taking their data," he said, looking over to Yamaki.

"I need it for research," he said distractedly, taking out his headset again, "Cancel the backup, the situation has been resolved. I'm returning to headquarters." He then walked away.

Naomi looked over to Renamon, who was still lying on the ground, then back to Impmon, "Stronger? And I'm not stronger, either," she said, half-shrugging her shoulder.

"It only works for digimon, not humans. And it's only when we _win_ the fights."


	11. Chapter 11

The next day at school, Rika found herself distracted. She never found the lessons particularly interesting anyway, but this time it was different. Recently, she just couldn't stop thinking about Naomi. She couldn't stop staring at her, either. She felt so stupid; she'd always denounced the idea of "crushes" and "love" as being beneath her, or at least being too feminine for her. And yet, here she was, being just as bad as the rest of the girls in her class. She had to make a conscious effort to restrain herself from drawing heart all over her notebook, or writing her and Naomi's names together. She blushed at the thought, and looked away from Naomi, but then looked back.

Naomi didn't seem distracted at all. The teacher was telling them something about science, but Rika wasn't even sure which area of science it was anymore. Naomi was leaning her head on her hand, and seemed to have no expression, so it wasn't clear whether she was very interested or very bored, though it seemed to definitely be one of those.

Rika wished there wasn't a seating plan, so that she and Naomi could sit next to each other, and she'd know whether Naomi was interested in the topics or not, and they could pass each other notes and hold hands under the desk. She grimaced as she blushed again and suddenly felt butterflies. This was _pathetic_. They'd only been together for about two weeks!

"Rika," the teacher called out, "Can you tell me the chemical equation for glucose, or were you not paying attention at all?"

"Um…"

Naomi looked over, held up her hand as if she was going to sign it, then looked confused and looked away again.

The teacher sighed, "That's what I thought. Pay attention!"

"Sorry," Rika said, and continued paying nearly no attention.

* * *

At lunch time, Naomi went up to Rika and signed, "Sorry I didn't sign the chemical formula to you."

"That's okay, don't worry. You don't have to do anything like that, anyway."

"The numbers were too high to do with one hand," she said out loud, "And I thought doing it with two hands would've been too obvious."

Rika nodded, "Yeah, don't worry. Do you like chemistry?"

"I don't know. It's okay. I like science in general, but chemistry isn't one of my favourite kinds. Do you?"

"I didn't even know it was chemistry until she asked me that."

Naomi laughed and flapped one hand, "What were you thinking about?"

Rika blushed and looked away.

"I'm really curious now," Naomi said.

"You."

Naomi hugged Rika, "Aww!"

Rika hugged Naomi back, but said nothing.

A girl from their class came up to them as they pulled apart, and addressed Rika, "Why are you friends with _her_? She doesn't even speak. Does she even understand what people say?"

"Because she isn't a bitch like you and nearly everyone else here."

Naomi laughed.

The girl glared at both of them, "I just think you're wasting your time being friends with someone as _special_ as her when you could be friends with me and Yuki and the rest of them instead. Did you know Yuki's mom works for the same people your mom does?"

Rika rolled her eyes, "Do I really look like I care? You honestly need to shut up before one of us punches you."

" _She_ doesn't look like she could punch a blade of grass!"

"Well, you're wrong about that!"

Naomi just stood there silently, shaking. She was completely frozen, and definitely couldn't punch anyone right now.

"Why would I punch grass?" she signed shakily.

"It's a figure of speech," Rika signed back, "Are you scared? You seemed a lot more tough when we were fighting digimon."

"It's different."

"What are you saying? And why do the teachers let her have purple hair, anyway? I dyed my hair once last year and got detention!" the girl said.

"Go be bitter about that somewhere else," Rika said, "That's not our problem."

The girl glared, "Fine!"

She went towards Naomi, took out a scissors, and cut off some of Naomi's hair.

Naomi flinched as she did it, so she ended up only cutting off a few strands, but Naomi froze and went visibly pale.

"What the fuck was that for?" Rika yelled, pushing her away from Naomi, "How _dare_ you!"

Naomi's demeanour changed completely, and went over, grabbed the scissors out of the girl's hand, and shoved her as hard as she could against the nearest wall.

"You can't do that!" she screamed, and attempted to stab the girl with the scissors.

Rika ran over, but wasn't sure whether to intervene or not.

"Renamon," Rika whispered under her breath.

"Yes, Rika?" Renamon replied almost immediately.

"Can you take us away from here when I say to?"

"No!" Naomi yelled, "It's unforgivable!"

"Of course, Rika," Renamon replied.

Naomi held the girl against the wall by her throat with one hand, and punched her in the face with the hand that was holding the scissors.

"Oh my god!" the girl screamed, "I'm _bleeding_! Rika, stop her!"

"See?" Naomi yelled.

Rika went over and tried to pull Naomi back, but Naomi screamed even more, and thrashed around, trying to push her away.

"Renamon," Rika said, and Renamon instantly appeared, grabbed the two girls, and disappeared again. She dropped them off in an abandoned clearing in the park.

Naomi continued screaming, and started to hit herself with the hand holding the scissors, seeming not to notice that she was cutting herself in the process.

Renamon grabbed Naomi's arm and took the scissors out of her hand.

"Stop it!" Naomi sobbed.

Renamon stepped back from her, "Are you okay?"

Naomi curled up on the ground and cried, "Don't hurt me!"

Renamon turned to Rika, "Are you okay? What happened?"

Rika said nothing. She was kind of surprised that Naomi had reacted so violently to her trying to hold her back. It was almost as if she didn't see any difference between Rika and the other girl? She wasn't sure.

Naomi's sobs were quieter now, and Rika crouched down a few feet away from her, "Are you okay now?"

"Don't hurt me," she whispered.

"I'm not going to hurt you. ...Do you know who I am?"

Naomi rubbed her eyes and looked up at Rika, "Oh. Yeah. Sorry."

Rika sat down and Naomi sat up. Naomi lifted a hand to the side of her face, "This hurts."

"Yeah. It's bleeding. You hit yourself while holding a scissors."

Naomi tensed up. "That girl tried to cut my hair off."

"She only got a tiny part of it. It's not even noticeable."

"What happened?"

"Do you not remember?"

Naomi shook her head, "No, I feel weird and it's blurry. She tried to cut my hair off, and then it's all kinda blurry from there. I know I screamed a lot and I think I tried to hurt her. Then I think you grabbed me. But it's all blurry and I thought you were trying to hurt me. I was really scared." She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them.

"So, are you okay now?"

"Yeah. I'm like crashing from the adrenaline though. The really fun part- and I'm being sarcastic- of being autistic _and_ having been hurt by people is not being sure if something is a flashback or a meltdown," she laughed sadly, "That seemed kinda like both."

"I've heard of flashbacks, but what's a meltdown?"

"It's an autistic thing. I'm tired, you can either google it or I'll tell you later."

Rika nodded, "Okay."

"Did I hurt you when you grabbed me?"

"Not really. You kinda lashed out and tried to get away from me, which was pretty dangerous since you were holding a scissors, but it was fine."

Naomi looked up at Rika, "I'm sorry. I wasn't in control of myself, but I still don't want to have hurt you."

Rika shook her head, "I don't hold it against you. Hopefully that girl will learn to leave us alone now."

"Is she dead?"

Rika laughed, "No, she just has a few cuts on her face."

"Oh, okay."

"You might get detention or something, though."

Naomi groaned, "The teachers thinking I'm deaf or something gets me out of a lot of things, but I don't know if it'll work for that."

"Maybe they'll think you didn't know what you were doing?"

"That is sort of true anyway. So maybe. But that doesn't make it not be against their rules."

"Couldn't that apply to everything else?"

"Violence is worse, isn't it?"

"Honestly, in my experience, how much they enforce the rules depends on whether they like you or not. Or, more accurately, what kind of reputation your parents have. I'm nearly never in trouble because of my mom being a model."

"Wouldn't I be at the bottom of that, then? I told them I have no parents."

"Then it depends on how much they like you. Are you paying tuition?"

Naomi nodded, "I think they're charging me extra, too."

"Then you won't get expelled at least, so don't worry."

Naomi uncurled herself, and went over to Rika and hugged her.

"Can I kiss you?" Rika asked when Naomi pulled away.

Naomi smiled, "Yeah."

Rika kissed her on the lips, and got the same feeling of butterflies she'd gotten earlier in class.


	12. Chapter 12

Rika and Naomi skipped school for the rest of the day, but went back the next day.

As soon as they walked in, the girl from the day before came up to them.

“What the hell was that, yesterday? What happened? Where did you disappear to? And you can't just, like, try to kill people like that!” she said shakily, as she kept glancing suspiciously at Naomi.

Naomi tensed up and looked away.

“ _ You  _ can't just try to cut someone's hair off!” Rika said.

Naomi flinched.

The girl glared at both of them, “And what happened to  _ her _ face?”

Naomi stepped back, and reached up to feel the cuts on her face, which mirrored the other girl’s.

“Nothing. Just leave her alone!”

“ _ Fine _ , I will!” she said, and walked away.

Naomi covered her face with both hands and breathed unevenly.

Rika turned towards her, “Are you okay?”

Naomi took her hands down and nodded, but signed, “Scared.”

“Well,” Rika looked over in the direction the other girl had gone in, “I don't think we'll have to deal with her again. And I'd forgotten that to her it looked like we both just disappeared into thin air. Hopefully that'll put her off trying to tell any teacher about it.”

Naomi smiled and nodded.

* * *

A week went by without any other digimon appearing, but when one finally did appear, it was an Infermon.

Rika sighed, “I am so tired of this. Seriously. Is there  _ no  _ other digimon that could show up? Why is this happening?”

Naomi looked like she was thinking, “Hmm. Diaboromon?”

“That's the mega form of Infermon, right?”

“Oh,” Takato said, “That  _ would _ make sense as the next thing. But I really hope that doesn't happen, since none of us can go above champion level. Apart from that one time you did.”

“Yeah,” Rika said, “But that was some kind of fluke. The blue card just disappeared and never came back.”

“Hmm,” Naomi said, “Recreate the circumstances?”

“It was when you got hurt, the first time,” Rika said, “I don't want to recreate that.”

“Wait, then why didn't it happen again when she got shot?” Takato asked.

“I don't know, I don't remember.”

Yamaki and Impmon arrived to the digital field at the same time, though from different directions.

Naomi turned to Yamaki, “Do you know anything new yet?”

He shook his head, “The research is inconclusive. Every time we think there's some pattern in the data, something contradicts it. We can't even figure out what these things are made of, never mind why they're here.”

“Maybe there is no pattern.”

“No! There has to be a pattern! All of this research can’t be for nothing!” Yamaki yelled.

Naomi shrugged, “New strategy,” she said, and walked towards Infermon.

“What are you doing?” everyone asked at once.

“You aren't putting yourself in danger on purpose in the hope of Rika reaching ultimate again, are you?” Henry asked.

“No, but maybe that's an idea too,” Naomi laughed. She turned towards Infermon, “Why are you here? Is there something you want?”

Infermon seemed to stare at her, but didn't respond.

“Uh… I really don't think that's a good idea,” Rika said.

There was silence as everyone waited to see if Infermon would respond.

Infermon reached out a tentacle and wrapped it around Naomi's waist. Naomi tensed and prepared to scream, but realized it didn't hurt.

“It doesn't hurt!” she said.

“Is that a response? Is it saying it wants  _ you _ ? Or humans in general? Or what?” Rika asked.

“I don't this these wild ones are capable of thought,” Yamaki said, “They've never spoken before, have they? They always seem to operate purely on instinct. I don't think this one is any exception.”

“That's what we'd kinda thought,” Henry said, “They never spoke or responded, they never seemed to have a strategy, they always seemed to just… Attack everyone and everything at random,” Henry said.

“Not speaking doesn't mean anything!” Naomi said, “I don't speak a lot of the time but I still think.”

“Yeah, but… You still communicate and respond and it's obvious that you know what you're doing and what's happening around you.”

Naomi shrugged, “They might, too. Maybe they need a different communication method.”

“Well,” Renamon said, “As a digimon, I don't sense any thought or sentience from them. Guilmon, for example, lacks intelligence but is still clearly sentient, but these digimon that appear… They don't seem to have any sentience. It's as though the only thing they know how to do is attack.”

“Hmm,” Naomi said, “I'm still not sure. If it was me, I wouldn't want people to assume I was brainless and just give up on me. I know they just attack us and we kill them anyway, but still.”

Infermon tightened its grip on Naomi, but it still didn't hurt.

“Maybe it doesn't understand English,” Naomi said, “It might still be smart. Because I just realized that you can't really attack it without risking hurting me, can you? Brainless things don't take hostages, do they?” She sounded slightly nervous now.

Rika went pale, “...You're right. What are we meant to do?”

“Network grenade!” Infermon attacked without warning, launching multiple bullets at everyone.

Everyone ducked to the ground, and Rika, Henry and Takato swiped cards, “Digivolution activate!”

“Naomi's right, though,” Henry said, “What are we meant to do? Infermon could just electrocute her to death if we do anything.”

Naomi squirmed a little, and realised she couldn't reach the pocket she kept her knife in. “Maybe if someone could cut it, but so fast that the electricity wouldn't have time?”

“That would work in theory,” Henry said, “But we'd need to be ridiculously fast. Like, possibly near the speed of light or something.”

“That's not a bet I want to take,” Rika said, “The chances of any of us being fast enough are so low, and she could die!”

“But what other option is there?” Henry asked.

“I don't know, hope it gets distracted and tries to throw her at us?”

“That doesn't sound like it has a very high chance of success, either. Infermon could electrify that tentacle at any second.”

Everyone was silent as they tried to think of a way to defeat Infermon without harming Naomi.

Naomi squirmed, but the tentacle stayed wrapped around her, and lifted her up into the air.

“Well, it can’t hold me like this  _ forever _ , can it? Maybe we could just wait until its tentacle gets tired?”

“That doesn’t seem like a good idea either,” Henry said, “Though honestly, nothing does.”

Rika realised her entire body was tense and her heart was pounding. She was terrified that Naomi was going to die, and she felt like her entire life was flashing before her eyes, but instead of her own past, it was all the time in the future that she would never get to spend with Naomi. She blushed as tears rose to her eyes. This wasn’t helping! She was just humiliating herself in front of everyone now!

“Network grenade!”

Everyone dodged Infermon’s bullets again.

Yamaki took out his device and started adjusting it, “Maybe I can dissipate its data?”

“That didn’t work last time though, did it?” Takato asked.

“That was just because there were so many of them,” Yamaki said, and aimed the device at Infermon.

“No!” Rika said, “What if it doesn’t work? And Infermon electrocutes her?”

“I really think this has a higher chance of success than trying to cut through it,” Yamaki said.

“Just don’t do anything!”

“It’s okay,” Naomi said, “Don’t worry. Don’t be sad.”

“How can I not worry?” Rika yelled, and took out her cards and began to flick through them, “You could  _ die! _ What would I do then?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for everything to go wrong again.”

Rika took a shaky breath, and the card she was holding glowed, and turned into a blue card. She looked down at it, “Oh. But, digivolving to ultimate wouldn’t help, would it? Taomon isn’t fast or anything,” she said quietly.

She swiped it anyway, “Digivolution activate!”

Kyuubimon digivolved to Taomon.

“I could cast a spell,” Taomon said, “And make Naomi electricity-proof.”

Rika looked at her strangely, “Would that… Work?”

Takato held his digivice towards Taomon, and read what came up on the screen, “Taomon, ultimate level, data type, capable of casting any spell, main attacks- I can’t pronounce that,” he turned to Rika, “But yeah, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”

“Well, okay then, if you’re sure.”

Taomon painted a symbol in the air, and the symbol glowed onto Naomi.

“Do you feel any different?” Rika asked.

Naomi shrugged, “Not really, but I’m going to assume it worked.”

“Can I try this now?” Yamaki asked, gesturing with his device.

“I guess, yeah,” Rika said.

Yamaki aimed it at Infermon and pressed a button. Infermon began to flicker in and out of existence, and then started shooting sparks of electricity everywhere.

This included electrifying the tentacle that was holding Naomi in the air, but she was unaffected.

“Bada boom!” Impmon threw a fireball at the unstable Infermon, who then burst into data.

“Thank you,” Yamaki muttered.

“Can I have some of that data?” Impmon asked.

Yamaki sighed, “Yeah, fine, why not?” He then pressed another button on his device, which seemed to lower the force with which it sucked in the data.

At the same time, Naomi tried to inhale some of the data that was swirling around her.

Impmon and Taomon both began absorbing the data they could pull towards them.

“What are you doing?” Impmon asked Naomi, “You’re a human, you can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can,” she signed, “It just hurts like hell. Worse than anything I’ve ever tried to smoke.”

“What did she say?” Impmon asked.

Rika repeated what Naomi had signed. “Wait, what? You smoke? Don’t do that!”

Naomi signed, “Lol. I only tried, don’t worry.”

“Is that safe? Humans inhaling data? Is that even possible?” Takato asked.

“Well, she’s doing it, so it’s possible,” Rika said.

“That’s- That shouldn’t be possible,” Yamaki said, “Naomi, would you come to Hypnos so I can run some tests on you?”

Naomi shook her head emphatically.

“None of this ‘should’ be possible in the first place,” Henry said.

All of the data finally dispersed, and Rika went over to Naomi and hugged her, “I was really scared you’d die,” she said, “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

Naomi hugged back but said nothing.

Rika let Naomi go, “Are you okay? Can you speak?”

“My throat hurts too much,” Naomi signed, “That data  _ burned _ . It was like fire.”

“Maybe that wasn’t a good idea.”

Naomi smiled and shrugged.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to Readerpal from fanfiction.net, for the general idea of Rika and Naomi being adorable over digimon cards.

Later that day, the tamers, Naomi, Kazu, Kenta and Jeri were in the playground near Takato and others' school.

"I wish I could see a digimon battle in real life," Kazu said, "It sounds like it would be awesome! You should let me know next time."

"It gets boring after a while," Takato said, "It's just been the same digimon over and over and over for the past month or more."

"They're actual battles, not spectator sports," Rika said, "It would be dangerous for someone without a digimon partner to just come and watch."

"Wait, hang on, Naomi does that all the time," Takato said.

"That's different, she actually helps."

"Well hey, I could help too!" Kazu said.

"Yeah, me too!" Kenta said.

"Lol," Naomi signed.

"Yeah, no, I really don't think so," Rika said, "Could you _really_ go up to a digimon and stab it with a knife? Most people would be too scared."

"I bet I could do that!"

Kenta looked unsure.

"Does Naomi do that?" Jeri asked quietly, and turned to Naomi, "Do you really… Stab digimon?"

"Sometimes," Naomi signed.

"She said sometimes," Rika said, "And it's not just for fun. They are trying to kill us, you know."

Jeri looked away, "I guess, but… I couldn't imagine doing that."

There was an awkward silence, and Rika turned to Naomi, "Can you still not speak?"

Naomi coughed slightly, then shook her head.

Rika looked between Naomi and Jeri, "I just noticed," she signed, "You and Jeri dress kinda similarly. The dress and t-shirt combination, I mean."

"Hmm. Well, _I'm_ not changing _my_ style," Naomi responded, "I hope you still find me prettier." She grinned.

"Of course I do!"

Naomi smiled and made a heart with her hands.

Rika blushed slightly and looked away.

"Do you know how to play digimon cards?" Kazu asked Naomi.

She shook her head.

"Did Rika still not teach you?"

Naomi shrugged, then signed, "We've been doing other things," which Rika repeated out loud.

"Like actual digimon battles, for one thing," Rika said.

Kazu shrugged and took out his cards, "Well, you never know when you'll need card skills."

"You teach me, then," Naomi signed to Kazu, which again, Rika repeated out loud.

"Hey, I'll get around to showing you how to play if you really want me to!" Rika said, "You don't need a loser like him showing you inferior strategies!"

"Lol," Naomi signed.

Rika blushed and walked away. She felt like if anyone should be teaching her girlfriend how to play digimon cards, it should be _her_ , especially since she's the best at it anyway. It wasn't like there was any actual risk of somehow losing Naomi to Kazu in any way, but she still felt slightly jealous. Either way, she decided to leave them to it. It would be painful in at least two ways to hear _Kazu_ of all people giving her girlfriend inferior advice.

Jeri came after Rika, "Are you okay? Why are you just leaving her there?"

"I don't want to listen to him giving her useless advice that I'm just gonna have to un-teach her. I didn't avoid showing her how to play on purpose! She never even brought it up! There are so many more important things!"

Rika and Jeri were a good distance from the others now, but she could still see them when she looked back. Naomi had her phone out now, and was presumably communicating that way.

"Are you sure you're okay? You seem… Jealous, or something?" Jeri asked, seeming confused.

Rika blushed, "No, that's ridiculous. Why would I be jealous? There's no chance she could ever like Kazu in any way. He's an idiot. There's no way he could take her from me."

"...Like, as a friend, or?"

Rika shook her head, "N-no, she can have friends, obviously. We're together. Sort of. I'm being ridiculous."

" _Oh_. Wow. How long have you been together? I hadn't even noticed. Either way, even if you weren't together, I wouldn't blame you for being unhappy that she's asking Kazu to teach her instead of you, since you are better at it and all."

"Um, we've been together a few weeks now, I think. Maybe over a month. And yeah, exactly, that's the problem. Why would she- Ugh."

"I want to ask how you met, but you're in the same school so that kinda answers that question. Hmm… What was your first date like?"

Rika gave Jeri a weird look, "Are you trying to live vicariously through me, or something?"

Jeri blushed and shook her head, "No, no, I just think it's really cute, and you're the first person I know to actually get into a relationship, so I want all the details!"

Rika laughed quietly, "Well, we've never been on a date exactly. She comes with me to digimon battles if you want to count that. She's the thing that got Renamon to digivolve to ultimate. What I mean is, how much I care about her was what it took to… I don't know how it works," she trailed off, blushing.

Jeri beamed, "That is so sweet! If it's anything like in the TV show, that must mean you really, really care about her, right? Like, your love for her was strong enough that it was what gave Renamon enough power to reach the ultimate level! That's amazing! You must be soulmates!"

"I- Love? No, no," Rika looked down, blushing. She didn't want to say she "loved" Naomi; it seemed like much too soon for that. But Jeri was right. Her feelings for Naomi were enough to make Renamon digivolve, so that must definitely mean _something_. What had made Renamon reach champion level was how much _Renamon_ cared about _her_ , and she guessed that it was probably supposed to be the same for ultimate level, right? But instead her own emotions caused it, so they must have been pretty strong if they could throw off how digivolution was supposed to happen.

"Oh, sorry," Jeri said, "That's just the first word that came to mind. You don't have to call it that if you don't want to."

Rika suddenly felt stupid for her jealousy. Jeri was right about how much she cared about Naomi, and it would be pretty ridiculous for a card game to get in the way of that.

* * *

 

Naomi wasn't sure why Rika had walked away, nor why Jeri had gone after her, but she decided to ignore that and focus on listening to Kazu explain the various types of cards and their functions. She took out her phone so that she could type on it if she needed to communicate. She felt slightly hurt that Rika had just walked away without saying anything, especially since she was the only one who really understood sign language, but she probably had a good reason, and would probably be back soon.

"So, you get all that?" Kazu asked, after he finished his explanation.

Naomi nodded.

"Cool, now we'll go onto strategy. Though Rika would probably be better at that than me, to be totally honest. Hey, where'd she go?"

Naomi pointed in the direction Rika had gone. She could see that Rika and Jeri were talking, but she wasn't sure what about. Rika seemed to be blushing, though.

Naomi knew that blushing meant either embarrassment, romantic feelings, or some combination; she remembered specifically when Rika first told her that she liked her, and when she'd first kissed Rika. She wondered if they were talking about her, or if Rika liked Jeri, too. Rika _had_ said that Naomi and Jeri dressed alike, _and_ Jeri wasn't trans- as far as Naomi was aware- so maybe Rika would think she was prettier since she presumably looked more like a girl anyway.

Naomi shifted position and stared at the ground, suddenly self-conscious. She hadn't felt this insecure in a long time. She hoped Rika would come back over soon so she wouldn't feel so alone.

She glanced over to Takato and Henry. She knew both of them more than she knew Kazu or Kenta, so she felt slightly reassured by their presence, but they didn't know sign language and they weren't Rika. And she still felt that anyone could turn on her at any time if they figured out that she was trans. She blushed and stared at the ground. What if they suddenly looked really closely at her and figured it out and decided to hurt her? She did have a knife, but there was four of them, so she'd be pretty outnumbered.

"Hey, are you okay?" Kazu tapped Naomi on the shoulder.

Naomi flinched and jumped backwards. She almost screamed but the sound wouldn't come out and her throat hurt too much. She coughed slightly and her throat felt like it was burning. Inhaling that data really had been a mistake.

She grimaced slightly, then typed on her phone and made it read it out loud, "I'm okay, sorry. Just wondering why Rika walked away just to talk to Jeri."

Henry came over and sat down next to Naomi, "I think she was offended that you asked Kazu to teach you digimon cards."

Naomi frowned, and typed, "Well, why didn't she say that? It's not like I don't want her to teach me, but Kazu offered and I'm here right now, so why not?"

Naomi could understand why Rika would be offended now that she thought about it; Rika was better, and she was her girlfriend. But that hadn't occurred to her at first. She sighed quietly. Would Rika still like her even though she'd offended her now?

* * *

 

Rika looked back over to Naomi and the others, then turned to Jeri, "Thanks," she said, "Your invasive questions made me realise that it's kinda stupid for me to be jealous over something so small when I care about her so much."

Jeri smiled, "Aww! I'm so glad I could help!"

The two of them walked back to the others.

Naomi stood up and went over to Rika, "Henry said I offended you, and that's why you walked away. Is that true?" she signed, "I'm sorry. Do you still like me? Do you still think I'm prettier than Jeri?"

"Uh," Rika said out loud, then signed, "I was kinda offended, I felt almost like you were choosing Kazu over me, yeah. But it's okay, don't worry. Of course I still like you, and of course I still think you're prettier than Jeri!"

Rika hugged Naomi, "I lo-like you too much to let something stupid like cards get in the way of that."

Naomi hugged back, then kissed Rika on the cheek.

Rika kissed Naomi on the lips. Naomi reciprocated, and the two stayed that way for a few minutes, until they were interrupted.

"Holy shit, are they making out?" Kazu yelled.

"Ssh, you ruined the moment!" Jeri said.

Rika and Naomi pulled apart, and Naomi laughed silently.

"Shut up, Kazu," Rika said, "And no, we weren't."

"It sure looked like it from here!"

Naomi typed, "We were just regular kissing. It's different."

Jeri laughed, "Aww, that's sweet."


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this chapter onwards, this is officially a crossover between both Digimon Tamers and the book Something Wicked Nothing Sacred by C.C Corma (if you google the title it should come up on amazon, and the reason it wasn't "officially" a crossover before now was because I wasn't sure if the author was okay with fanfiction of it or not, but now I know they are). So the new characters, setting, themes, etc in this chapter and the next one are from that. Also, SWNS has themes of things like gangs, drugs, sex work, etc, so any mentions or representations of those things are based on how they're represented in that, but either way I apologise if I don't portray them well or accurately.  
> Naomi doesn't exist in that story so this is an AU of that too, and the characters are also likely at least a bit out of character. 
> 
> I'm not sure if this chapter and the next one will make much sense to anyone who hasn't read SWNS, but hopefully it won't be too confusing.

That night, Naomi slept over at Rika’s house, as was pretty common at this point.

It was midnight, but neither of them were sleeping. Rika was staring at the ceiling, and Naomi was looking at her phone.

Naomi started coughing, and grimaced as her throat hurt.

Rika looked over, “Are you okay?”

Naomi nodded, and sat up, but kept coughing.

“Please don’t ever try to inhale data again.”

“I know,” Naomi said out loud, her voice sounding quiet and scratchy, “I won’t.”

She continued coughing, but then jumped when her phone rang.

“Who’s calling?” Rika asked, confused. In the amount of time she’d known Naomi, she’d never actually seen her phone ring or go off.

Naomi shrugged, and coughed a few more times, “I don’t know,” she said, sounding slightly more normal this time, “Maybe my friend.”

She answered her phone, and said nothing for a few minutes.

“Okay. Can I hear this from someone who isn’t you? … Because you exaggerate everything. … Fine. Can I- Never mind. … I’ll tell you later. Bye.”

Rika was even more confused.

Naomi smiled, “You know how I’ve gotten to meet your friends? Do you wanna meet mine?”

Rika nodded, “Yeah, sure.”

“Okay,” Naomi said, and stood up, “Get dressed and let’s go.”

“Now?” Rika said, doing as Naomi said, “But it’s the middle of the night.”

“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No, I do, I’m just really confused.”

Naomi shrugged, “You’ll see.”

* * *

Rika had no idea where they were walking to, but just followed Naomi. They’d gone past where Naomi lived and continued walking, and it seemed as though the houses and other buildings were more and more falling-apart and graffiti-covered the further they walked. She started to feel uneasy.

“Um, is this place safe? Wherever we’re going?”

“Not really,” Naomi said, “But as long as you’re with me you’ll be fine!”

That just unsettled Rika even more, but she didn’t say anything else.

After a while, they got to a bus stop, and waited there. 

“Do buses run this late?” Rika asked.

“This one does!” Naomi said.

After a few minutes, a bus pulled up, and they got on.

Rika paid for both of them, and they moved towards the back of the bus. It seemed completely empty, until a person jumped up from one of the back seats and ran over.

“Naomi!” the person yelled, “Who’s your friend? What took so long? Why haven’t we seen you? Teri hasn’t told us anything and says you’re gone all the time! Where do you go? What have you been doing? Why did your voice sound so weird on the phone? Woah, your hair is purple! That's awesome!”

Rika shrank back slightly from how loud this person was.

Naomi laughed but said nothing, and grabbed Rika’s hand and dragged her towards the back of the bus, where a few more people were sitting.

Rika sat as far away from the people as possible. Were these Naomi’s friends? She wasn’t sure why exactly, but they seemed slightly intimidating.

Naomi poked Rika to get her attention, then signed, “From now on, you have to be quiet and act submissive to everyone. There’s a hierarchy here, and you’re below the bottom of it because you’re not from anywhere around here. Nobody will hurt you ‘cause you’re with me, but you still need to be careful.”

Rika was shocked, but nodded silently.

“Perfect! Just like that,” Naomi signed. Then she pointed to everyone on the bus in turn, and spelled out their names, “That’s Rio,” she signed, pointing to the loud person with blonde hair who was only just sitting back down, “That’s Rune,” she pointed to someone with long black hair, “And that’s Rayne,” she pointed to someone with red hair, vaguely similar to Rika’s.

“So, who _is_ your friend, and where _have_ you been?” Rune asked.

Naomi coughed slightly, then smiled and flapped both hands enthusiastically, “This is Rika! She’s my girlfriend! And I guess I’ve just been busy with school and stuff,” she shrugged.

“I go to school too, and _I_ still have time to go out,” Rio said.

“ _You_ aren’t in a relationship,” Naomi said, “Anyway, where’s Teri? Where’s Pixie, as well, actually?”

“I think he’s probably gone ahead of us,” Rayne said, “And Pixie’s…” he trailed off and rolled his eyes, and Rune laughed.

“Still?” Naomi said, and Rayne just nodded.

Rika felt extremely out of place, and wondered what exactly Naomi meant when she’d said there was a hierarchy.

Rio stared at Rika silently for a while. “Oh my gosh,” he yelled, “You’re _that_ girl!”

Everyone else looked at him in confusion.

“You’re the Digimon queen! You won that card tournament!”

“Oh. Yeah,” Rika said.

“What?” Rune and Rayne asked simultaneously.

“You know,” Rio said, “Digimon cards?”

They both stared blankly.

“Okay, digimon?”

They both shook their heads.

“The thing me and Naomi talk about a lot?”

Rune showed some slight signs of recognition then, “Oh, the thing Naomi recites stuff from?”

Rio nodded, “Yeah! That’s the show. But there’s a card game, too. And there was a big tournament, and _she_ ,” he pointed to Rika, “She won it this year! Oh, and the guy who won it the year before that had the same name as me!”

“He spelled it differently, though,” Rika said.

“How do you know how I spell my name?” Rio asked.

“Naomi spelled it out to her, you idiot,” Rune said.

“ _Oh_.”

Rayne shook his head, “You really need to learn sign language. It’s like you don’t even _try_ to.”

“Didn’t that other guy- Ryo- get kidnapped or something?” Rio asked Rika.

“I don’t think so. He disappeared, yeah, but I don’t think he got _kidnapped._ ”

“Hmm,” Naomi said, “Maybe he got pulled into the digital world or something.”

Rune sighed, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it sounds ridiculous. I don’t think that’s real.”

Naomi shrugged.

“What _did_ happen to your voice?” Rayne asked, “It sounds different. No offence.”

“I burnt my throat,” she said, “It doesn’t hurt as much anymore, it’s just hard to make my voice go as high as usual now.”

The bus stopped suddenly, and Rune, Rayne and Rio got up. Naomi and Rika followed them, and got off the bus.

When they got off the bus, there was another person at the bus stop.

“Hey, Teri!” Rio yelled, “Look, Naomi’s here! She brought her girlfriend! Her name's Rika!”

Naomi sighed quietly, but then went over to the other person and hugged him.

“Hey. You’ve got a girlfriend now?”

“Yeah,” she said, and coughed, “Sorry I never told you.”

“And what happened to your voice?”

“I burnt my throat,” she shrugged.

“And what happened to you a few weeks ago?” he asked, looking worried, “I didn’t wanna ask about it then, but seriously, how did you get shot?”

“... I can’t tell you,” she said, and looked away.

“You got _shot_?” Rio shouted.

Rune and Rayne stared at Naomi in shock.

“What? What happened? What did you do? Did you pick a fight with a Wolf or something?” Rune asked.

“A… Wolf?” Rika asked, “Shooting someone?”

Rayne raised an eyebrow at her, “You really don’t know anything, do you? I mean, about us, and this place. The Street Wolves are a gang. There’s some other gangs around here too, but the Wolves are… Well, messing with one of their higher-up members is a bit more likely to get you shot.”

Rika felt like she couldn’t breathe. Was that what Naomi had meant by a hierarchy? This place really _was_ dangerous!

Naomi signed to Rika, “Oh, by the way, that guy is Wynter,” she pointed to the guy with medium length dark hair who they’d been calling Teri, “He’s my closest friend out of all of these guys, and he’s the one I live with.”

“Gangs?” Rika asked, seeming to ignore what Naomi had just said.

“Yeah,” Naomi said out loud, “I found it scary at first too, but you get used to it. Anyway,” she turned to the others, “Do I look stupid? Of course I didn’t-” she trailed off as she began to cough uncontrollably.

Rika rubbed Naomi’s back in concern.

Wynter turned to Rika, “So, you’re Naomi’s girlfriend? Please take good care of her, okay?”

“I will, don’t worry.”

“Do you know what happened to her? She just- She came home one day with a bullet wound and wouldn’t tell me what happened.”

Rika looked away, as Naomi stopped coughing.

“I can’t tell you, I’m sorry,” Rika said.

She felt bad not telling Wynter, since she could see that he seemed to care about Naomi as much as she did, but she really wasn’t sure about telling Naomi’s friends about the digimon. She’d only just met them, and wasn’t sure if she even particularly trusted them yet. She really didn’t want to go around telling everyone who asked about something that was meant to be a secret. But then again, Takato had told his entire class, hadn’t he? But that was his decision. Rika wasn’t sure if she wanted to do something like that, and these weren’t even _her_ friends, they were Naomi’s. She might not even have ever told Naomi at all if she hadn’t wandered into the middle of a battle.

Rika turned to Naomi, “How about this? It’s your decision if you tell your friends or not, since they are _your_ friends.”

Naomi nodded, then turned to Wynter and signed quickly, “I’ll explain later, if you really want. But you might not believe me, and you definitely won’t like it.”

Wynter shrugged, then gestured towards Rika and signed, “Can she sign?”

Naomi nodded, and signed, “Yeah, but she’s not as good us yet.”

“Really?” Rika asked, "I thought I was pretty good."

Naomi nodded, “Yeah,” she said out loud, “I go kinda slowly for you. And you probably wouldn’t pick up something like…” she thought for a minute, then quickly signed something incoherent.

“Yeah, you’re right, I didn’t get that at all.”

Wynter shook his head, “That’s cheating, those words weren’t even in the right order.”

“Yeah, but that’s how I sign to you when I don’t want anyone else getting it,” she stopped speaking and started coughing again.

“You probably shouldn’t be talking if your throat’s burned, should you?” Wynter asked.

Naomi shrugged.

Rio sighed loudly, “Come _on_ , let’s _go_ already! And Naomi, will you tell _me_ how you got shot?”

“If she ain’t even telling Teri, why would she tell you?” Rune asked, “But yeah, we should probably quit standing here.”

“We needed to find Teri anyway, though,” Rayne said.

“Yeah, and now we’ve got him,” Rune said.

They all started walking.

Rio went over to Naomi and grabbed her shoulder. She flinched slightly.

“Come on! What happened? I wanna know! Did you pick a fight with someone?”

Naomi got Rika’s attention, then signed, “Repeat what I say, please.”

Rika nodded, and repeated Naomi’s words out loud as she signed, “It wasn’t by doing something stupid like you would’ve.”

Rio sighed, “That was _one time_! I didn’t even _know_ the guy was a Wolf!”

Wynter, Naomi, Rune and Rayne all rolled their eyes in sync.

“Babe, I’m pretty sure you’ve done nearly that exact thing at least five different times now,” Wynter said.

Rika looked between Wynter and Rio when he called him “babe”.

“Oh,” Wynter said, noticing her curiosity, “I call everyone that. Most people around here do the same thing. I've been stopping myself from calling Naomi that in case you got the wrong idea, but if I end up doing it, try not to take it personally or anything.”

“Oh, okay,” Rika said. She didn’t understand anything about these people. They seemed completely different from her and all of her friends, and she would have thought that they were completely different from Naomi too, but Naomi seemed to fit in with them perfectly. She didn’t feel as completely uneasy as she had at first, but she still felt pretty out of place and uncomfortable. She continued walking, hoping she’d get used to it later, and wondering if Naomi felt similarly around her friends.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything I said in the note of the previous chapter applies in this one, too. (As in, the new characters and themes are from Something Wicked Nothing Sacred, I apologise if I mis-represent anything, and I hope it isn't too confusing for anyone who hasn't read SWNS)
> 
> Also, in this story I'm considering that in the Tamers universe, all the other seasons exist as a tv show, not just the first two (except Hunters, since I'd have to either pretend the crossover at the end didn't exist, or pretend that the Tamers characters weren't in it). That is technically slightly inconsistent since in the seasons after Tamers they sometimes show digimon from Guilmon's evolution line, but if I remember correctly, in the English dub it gets implied that Wargrowlmon already existed even though he didn't (Kazu says something like, "that's Wargrowlmon!" despite having no way of knowing that), so if that inconsistency can be overlooked, so can this one. :P  
> I also consider them to be speaking English in this (as opposed to pretending that I'm representing Japanese through English), so when Naomi recites or signs a line from digimon, it's generally in Japanese, and nobody understands what she's saying (if she signs specifically in Japanese, she spells out the phonetics using English letters, as opposed to using Japanese sign language).

Eventually, the six of them arrived at what seemed to be an abandoned building, but it was full of people, with loud music playing.

“Is this a party?” Rika asked.

“Yeah, it’s my friend’s birthday party,” Wynter said, “He’s- Wait, did Naomi not tell you anything?”

Rika shook her head, “Not really, she got a phone call and then said if I wanted to meet her friends we should leave right then.”

Wynter laughed.

Naomi shook her head, and signed, “No, it was Rio’s fault! He just called me and was super vague. He was like, ‘There’s a party! You should come! We’ll be on the bus!’ and wouldn’t tell me anything else or let me talk to anyone else.”

“Oh, okay,” Wynter said, but laughed again.

Rune began to walk away, “I’ll see you guys later, okay?”

Wynter nodded, “Okay.”

“Me too,” Rayne said, “I’m gonna see if Pixie’s around,” he rolled his eyes again.

“He should be,” Wynter said, “That’s my guess, anyway.”

“And clearly you need to catch up with Naomi, even though she _lives with you_ ,” Rune said, laughing.

Wynter shrugged.

Rio looked between both groups, “Should I go with them or stay here? Hmm… I guess I’ll stay here! Is that okay?”

“That ain’t ever stopped you before, but of course it’s okay,” Wynter said.

Rio turned to Naomi, “So, come on, you were _shot_? What _happened_?”

Naomi sighed, then coughed slightly, “Can’t you just let that go?” she said out loud, “And like I said, I didn’t do anything stupid like you,” she laughed.

“Well…” Rika said, “It was _kinda_ stupid.”

Naomi shrugged, “No, it was different. You don’t _need_ to go up to gang members and tell them their tattoo looks bad. That doesn’t help anyone.”

Wynter’s eyes widened, “Babe-” he looked to Rika, “Sorry. But, please don’t tell me you took a fucking bullet for someone else.”

Naomi hesitated, “N… No…”

Wynter just stared at her.

“Look, you would’ve done the exact same thing, and you know it. You _have_ done the same thing!” she looked pointedly at Rio.

“That was different,” Wynter muttered.

Naomi signed something confusing.

“What?” Wynter asked.

Naomi repeated what she signed, but slower, though Rika didn’t understand it in the slightest. She wasn’t sure if it even involved the same words or alphabet as the sign language she usually used.

Wynter repeated what she signed, seemingly trying to understand it, and Rika realised it was spelling something out using both hands instead of just one.

“ _Oh_ ,” he said eventually, “That _does_ fall under ‘stupid’.”

“Is that… A different sign language?” Rika asked.

Wynter and Naomi shook their heads.

“No,” he said, “It’s just something she made up. It’s slightly faster to spell words out when you do one letter on each hand, so she does some letters on one hand and the rest on the other, whenever she’s reciting something from a tv show.”

“Oh,” Rika said, feeling slightly upset by the fact that clearly there were things that Wynter knew about Naomi that she didn’t.

She thought for a second, then turned to Naomi, “Is there anything that I know about you that he doesn’t?”

“Hmm… Only if you count our interactions, I think. You know about what happened with me being shot and how I burned my throat, but otherwise, not really. Is that bad?”

“Not really, I assume he’s known you longer, right? It’s just… Just because I’m your girlfriend, I guess.”

“Oh, like with the cards earlier?”

Rika nodded.

“I’m sorry. You know most things,” Naomi said, looking slightly upset, “The fact that I like to quote lines from animes isn’t really super important. There is stuff Teri knows that you don’t, but we’ve known each other for years and been extremely close, and gone through a lot of stuff together. Kinda like how me and you have now, I guess, but draw it out for years.”

“I don’t know what you do or don’t know,” Wynter said, “But a lot of it is either stuff that’s happened to her, or other stuff that I don’t really have any right to tell you. Though half of it is just lines from animes I’ve ended up memorising from her repeating them so many times,” he shrugged.

“Have you seen digimon?” Naomi asked Rika.

“What, the show? No.”

“There you go,” Wynter said, “Why don’t you make her watch it with you?” he said to Naomi, then turned to Rika, “She’s seen every season at least twice. She keeps trying to make me watch it with her, but I usually end up falling asleep.”

“Every season? How many episodes is that?”

“Um,” Naomi said, then started counting, “Adventure, 02, Frontier, Savers, Xros Wars, Tri, Appmon… Fifty four, fifty, fifty, fourty eight, fifty four… Um… Seventeen so far? And Appmon’s not done yet, but I’ve seen up to twenty one. So that’s… Two hundred and ninety four?”

Rika’s eyes widened slightly, “Wow. I think Takato’s seen all of them too, or at least I get that impression. I had no idea it was that many. You don’t have like, all of the dialogue memorised, do you?”

Naomi grinned, “No, not yet.”

“I didn’t even know there were more seasons than just the main two,” Rio said.

Wynter addressed Naomi, “What does she know?” he asked, gesturing to Rika.

“She knows I’m trans and autistic,” Naomi said out loud, “And that I ran away and live with you. She knows bad things have happened to me, but not any details. That’s it, I think.”

Rika was surprised that Naomi mentioned being transgender out loud, since she’d been so secretive about it with her, and hid it from Takato and Henry and the others.

“Does everyone here know those things?” Rika asked.

“That I’m trans and autistic? Yeah,” Naomi said, “Not necessarily the other stuff.”

“Does she know-” Rio began, before Naomi interrupted him.

“If it ain’t something I just said, then no.”

Once again, Rika felt slightly hurt and left out, though she tried not to take it personally. Maybe it was something similar to Naomi being transgender; maybe it was something that hadn’t ended well when people found out about it before, or some kind of bad experience.

“You should tell her,” Wynter began out loud, then signed something Rika didn’t understand.

Naomi shook her head.

“I mean it,” he said, “If she’s gonna break up with you or something over that then maybe you’d wanna get it over with now. Not to mention, if she don’t wanna understand that, then she don’t deserve to be with you anyway.”

“Wait, which are you talking about?” Rio asked.

“Shut up,” Wynter said.

Rika looked down, and said nothing.

Rio went over to Rika, “It’s okay. I used to get left out too when I first started hanging around with Teri and the others. They kept saying I don’t belong here ‘cause I’m a rich kid and I ain’t like them.”

“We still think that, we just realised you weren’t going to leave,” Wynter said, but didn't sound entirely serious.

“See?” Rio laughed, “And since like, I don’t know, a year and a bit ago? I don’t know, but Teri and Naomi got really close, and now everyone feels weird around them because they spend more time talking to each other than anyone else. They act almost exactly like a couple, except that Naomi only likes girls and Teri only likes guys so they couldn’t be. Wait, was Naomi being a lesbian one of the things I wasn’t meant to tell you?”

Rika tried not to laugh at the last part, “Considering that I’m her _girlfriend_ , I kinda doubt it. I think that was one of the first things she told me, anyway.”

“Oh, yeah,” Rio shrugged.

Naomi looked like she was thinking, and seemed nervous, “Why don’t I just tell everyone the things they don’t know all at once? Right now?”

“I’m not gonna break up with you over whatever it is,” Rika said, “I care about you too much for that, I promise.”

Naomi grimaced and fidgeted nervously. She shook her head.

“Do you want one of us to tell her for you?” Rio asked.

She shook her head emphatically, “No!”

“You don’t have to,” Rika said.

“Why don’t you start with whatever it is you haven’t been telling me?” Wynter asked.

“Okay,” Naomi said, “That’s easier. You know digimon?”

Wynter nodded slowly, “Yeah?”

“Well, it’s real, basically. Not the shows- well, maybe, I don’t know- but the concept. Rika and her friends have digimon partners and they fight the bad digimon. That’s how I got shot.”

“ _What?_ ” Wynter asked incredulously.

“That is so awesome!” Rio yelled, jumping up and down, “That is so cool! Are they digidestined? Are you?”

“They are,” Naomi smiled, “But they call it being digimon tamers.”

“That’s so cool! That is _so cool_! Can I see?”

“Isn’t that really dangerous? You got _shot_ by one of them? I don’t want you involved with this, I don’t want you involved with her, either, anymore! Not if you’re gonna get hurt! And if it’s anything like the shows then danger comes to them, and you’ll get hurt just by being around her!” Wynter said.

“Woah, calm down,” Rio said.

“...You may be my best friend, but you ain’t any authority on me,” Naomi said.

“I am if it’s what’s best for you!”

Naomi was silent.

“I won’t let her get hurt,” Rika said quietly.

“It happened before! I ain’t blaming you, she obviously did something stupid herself, whatever the details were exactly, but I don’t trust you to protect her. It ain’t you, it’s just that you couldn’t react fast enough to stop her if she jumps into danger again. Because nobody could. And because of this digimon shit, if she’s around you, she’ll have too many opportunities to do that."

“I get what you’re saying,” Rika said, “But...”

“I’m not a baby,” Naomi said, “What you’re referring to was completely different. My judgement was fucked. Back then I _did_ need someone to force me to do what was best for me, against my will, because I couldn’t see it. But it ain’t like that anymore.”

Wynter stared at Naomi for a few seconds, “She’s a danger magnet. I don’t want a fucking danger magnet near someone I care about. I know you’re not stupid and you don’t have impaired judgement, but I ain’t gonna let you get yourself killed by association.”

Naomi folded her arms and looked away.

Wynter turned to Rika, “I still don’t have the right to tell you this, but…”

Naomi tensed up and looked at Wynter again.

“Ooh, drama,” Rio said, “This is just like on tv!”

“I guess I’m hoping maybe it’ll make you want to stay away from her, so… The main things she didn’t tell you- And don’t think that she was trying to lie to you or anything, she was probably just scared or it never came up- Are that she…” Wynter hesitated, “I forget what the good word is, hang on…”

Naomi unfolded her arms and reluctantly signed something to Wynter.

“Oh, yeah. She used to be a sex worker. Well, still is, just not as much. I try to work extra for both of us since she has to go to school now.”

Rika stared at Naomi incredulously, and wasn’t sure what exactly the mix of emotions she was feeling were.

“You know what that means, right?" Wynter asked, "I’d never actually heard the term ‘sex worker’ ‘til I met Naomi, but it seems pretty clear to me about what it involves.”

“Y-yeah,” Rika whispered, “I just… That’s awful.”

“You do what you have to to survive around here,” he shrugged, “Anyway, the other thing is that she used to have… Kind of a drug problem. That one is definitely a ‘used to’, though, unless there’s something else she ain’t telling me.”

Naomi shook her head.

“What drug?” Rika asked.

Just then, Rune came back over to them, “Are you guys _still_ out here? Seriously?”

“Ssh,” Rio said, “It’s getting so interesting!”

“Why, what did I miss?”

“Digimon are real, and Naomi’s girlfriend is a digidestined, so that’s how Naomi got shot, so now Teri’s really mad, so he’s trying to make her not like Naomi anymore so Naomi won’t be in danger, so he told her how Naomi has sex with people for money and used to do coke!”

“That’s ridiculous, digimon aren’t real,” Rune said.

Naomi pulled up her sleeve to show the scar she had from the bullet wound, “This is real!”

“What, digimon have guns?” Rune asked sarcastically.

“No, it shot it from its mouth.”

Wynter shuddered.

Rune went over to Wynter, “You’re trying to make her look bad to keep her out of danger? I honestly don’t even believe in this ‘digimon’ thing, but either way, that’s stupid and not going to work. You should know that.”

Rika was quiet as she tried to process everything Wynter had just said. She mostly felt bad for Naomi; she couldn’t believe her girlfriend had had to resort to prostitution just to survive, and she didn’t blame her for taking drugs given how stressful her life must have been. Even though Wynter’s goal had been to put her off Naomi, if anything, it just made her want to be with her more.

“That’s so awful,” Rika said quietly, “I’m so sorry. That must have been terrible.”

Naomi looked over to Rika, “You still like me?”

“Of course. Like I said, I care about you so much, I don’t think anything could make me not. Now I just feel bad that you’ve been through so much.”

“You don’t need to feel bad, it’s fine,” Naomi said.

Rika turned to Wynter, “What do you mean by ‘kind of’ a drug problem? And what drug was it?”

“Rio said it already, it was coke,” Wynter said.

Rune burst out laughing, “Did you say ‘kind of’? Were you joking?”

Wynter hesitated, “I know I was trying to make her girlfriend not want to be with her, but I didn’t want to make her look bad.”

“Oh man,” Rune addressed Rika, “You should have seen her. She was a fucking mess. I don’t know how the hell Teri handled her, because she got so aggressive and obnoxious that nobody could put up with her anymore. I’m pretty sure what happened in the end was that he like, duct taped her to the floor of wherever they lived then, until she got through withdrawals and stopped begging him to give her coke.”

“Stop it,” Wynter said, “You don’t need to humiliate her.”

“I don’t know how you tolerated her, seriously. She acted like such an asshole, and she always kept taking more and more until she got sick, but you still always looked after her no matter how fucked up she got. She went around screaming at people, picking fights-”

Wynter shoved Rune, “I said stop it! Naomi’s girlfriend don’t need to know that, and Naomi doesn’t even remember most of it, so it ain’t fair to hold it against her!”

Rune backed away and held his hands up defensively, “Hey, I ain’t holding it against her, and I know she’s off it now, and that wasn’t the real her, and she doesn’t even remember half of the worst of it. I _know_. I was just saying!”

Rika looked at Naomi, who was biting her lip and shaking slightly.

She went over to her and hugged her, “Are you okay? Is all of that true?”

Naomi hugged Rika back, “I don’t know, I don’t remember. I know I had a coke problem, yeah. I sort of remember acting horrible and blacking out, but there’s entire weeks I just don’t remember at all ‘cause I was either high or sick or in withdrawals, constantly. Teri took videos of me on my phone sometimes, and then when I'd gotten off it he showed them to me so I could see how much of a mess I was. So I know it happened. That was over a year ago now, I promise I’m never gonna get like that again.”

Rika kissed Naomi on the cheek and stepped back, “I’m not holding it against you. I mean, everything you went through sounds awful, it makes sense that you’d turn to drugs. I think.”

Naomi shrugged, “I think if you’d seen me then you might be holding it against me. Nobody hates me over it or anything, but, well, they get kinda nervous if they even see me drink coffee. Cocaine isn’t meant to do a lot of what it did to me, or at least not the getting really sick and not remembering anything part. It might be ‘cause I’m autistic, or maybe it’s just me. Either way, nobody wants me to ever have any stimulants again, pretty much.”

“The way she acted was funny at first,” Rio said, “Then it got really scary, then kinda sad.”

“I really don’t wanna talk about this,” Naomi said, shaking her head.

Rika turned to Wynter, “Right, now everyone knows everything, and you haven’t put me off her. I promise to protect her with my life, or do my best. I care about her a lot, too.”

Wynter closed his eyes and sighed, “Don’t you get that being near her is putting her in danger?”

Naomi went over to Wynter and grabbed his shoulder, and he flinched violently.

“Sorry. But what _you_ don’t seem to get is that _I’m_ the one deciding if I go near Rika or not. Even if she went away from me, I’d just go after her. I’m the one who follows her to the digimon battles; she doesn’t just drag me along. You’re acting like- I don’t know. But the point is, you’re not gonna keep me away from danger, because I _like_ danger! And, I guess, more importantly, Rika’s my girlfriend and I like her and you can’t just tell me not to go near her anymore!”

Naomi let go of Wynter and stepped back.

“See?” Rio said to Rune, “It’s just like a tv show!”

“I know,” Wynter said, “You ain’t like some object to be protected, but I still wanna protect you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Naomi smiled, “Don’t worry. I’ve killed more digimon than have hurt me.”

Wynter laughed, “Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t forget your reputation as fucking ‘knife girl’.”

Naomi grinned, “Exactly!”

“Knife girl?” Rika asked.

“When she first showed up around here, her first interaction with pretty much everyone was to try and kill them,” Rune said, “Seriously, I tried to hit on her and she nearly slit my throat. She also did the same thing to a Wolf,” he shook his head, “I still don’t know how the hell she didn’t get killed. Maybe they were too surprised seeing a girl so young and so low in the hierarchy trying to fucking kill one of them for no reason. But that got her a reputation, and from then on everyone knew not to fuck with her. Which was kinda the idea.”

“Wow,” Rika said, “That… Sounds kinda like me. But much more impressive.”

“Oh, really? Well, like Naomi told you on the bus, _you_ can’t really do that here. You ain’t from around here, you clearly ain’t a street kid at all, and it just really would not go down well. It worked for her, but it wouldn’t work for you.”

Rika shook her head, “Don’t worry, I wouldn't try.”

“Is that digimon thing actually true? Are they actually real, whatever they are? It sounds like some anime shit,” Rune said.

“I guess it kinda is, but yeah, it is true.”

“When has Naomi ever lied about anything?” Wynter said.

Rune and Rio were silent and tried to think.

“Didn’t she once tell someone she didn’t have a dick?” Rio asked.

“Okay, when has she ever made something up out of nowhere, as opposed to hiding something that for all she knew could’ve got her killed?”

Rio shrugged.

“Fine, fair point, but that don’t make it any easier to believe,” Rune said.

“Hard to believe don’t mean it ain’t true,” Wynter said.

“You know what?” Rika said, “Your accent, or the way you speak, kinda reminds me of someone or something, but I can’t remember what.”

“Naomi maybe?” Wynter asked.

Rika shook her head, “No. Actually, she always had the same accent as me and my friends- well, slightly different, but she didn’t really sound like you- until we got on the bus, then it seemed like the way she spoke started morphing and now she sounds almost exactly like you guys.”

“To me she doesn’t sound _exactly_ like us, just slightly different, like you said about how she sounds when she’s talking like you. But anyway, I wouldn’t know who you think I sound like,” he shrugged.

Naomi thought for a second, then grinned widely and flapped both hands in front of her face.

“Oh, you know?” Wynter asked.

She nodded, “Yeah! You sound like Impmon! That’s a digimon we know.”

“Yeah, that’s it!” Rika said.

“Well, okay. Is that one of the good ones?” Wynter asked.

“He’s kinda annoying sometimes, or he used to be, but yeah, he’s good,” Rika said, “He’s actually the one Naomi took a bullet for.”

Wynter sighed, “Why?”

“He would’ve died instantly,” Naomi said, “But I knew I wouldn’t.”

“Don’t ever do that again, though,” Rika said.

“Don’t worry, I will!” Naomi said.

“Wait, what? No, I said don’t!”

Naomi signed something Rika didn’t get.

“What?”

“It’s the same thing from earlier,” Wynter said, shaking his head, “It’s a quote from digimon. I forget what it means, but the guy in the show yelled it really dramatically, and Naomi uses it to justify doing stupid shit.”

“I’ve never seen any of the show, but I kinda feel like there must be a lot of quotes like that in every season, so I don’t think that really narrows it down.”

“...Yeah, good point,” Wynter said.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to Readerpal from fanfiction.net, for the idea of Jeri being seemingly undisturbed by danger.

Rika and Naomi got Renamon to carry them back to Rika's house by about five in the morning, and Rika got into bed instantly, not even bothering to change clothes.

Naomi got into the bed next to her, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just really not used to staying up so late. And I feel dizzy from being around so much smoke for so long. I can't believe- Well, I can believe it, I guess- That every single person there was either drinking or taking something, except us. Can you get high from breathing in other people's smoke?"

"I think you can a little, but that's usually only if you do it on purpose. Anyway, Wynter didn't take anything either."

"That was only because we didn't."

"Yeah, and I only didn't because you didn't."

"Would it have been safe for you to smoke weed?"

"...Are you asking if weed is like cocaine? It's not, they're completely different. I've had it before. It gives me weird effects that it's not supposed to, but you don't need to worry or anything."

Rika closed her eyes and didn't say anything.

"Do you wanna hang out with them again sometime, or was it too weird?" Naomi asked.

"I don't know," Rika said, "Right now I just want to sleep. It was pretty weird, it was completely different than anything I'm used to. I felt really out of place and it was weird seeing how well you fit in with them, and I can't stop thinking about how awful it must have been for you."

"You don't need to feel bad for me. It feels kinda like if I was to be like to you, 'wow, I'm so sorry, I can't believe you have to go through that' about you having to go school, if you get what I mean. It feels like you're acting like something that's completely normal for me is some kind of terrible thing. I know to you it is, and maybe if I thought too much about it then I'd feel that way too, but that's why I don't."

"I don't get it. I just don't want you to be hurt. You don't deserve any of that."

Naomi hugged Rika, but said nothing.

* * *

About a week later, Rika, Naomi, Takato, Henry, Kazu, Kenta and Jeri were in the playground near Takato's school.

"You know," Kazu said, "I've still never gotten to see a digimon battle."

Takato sighed, "Are you just going to keep bringing that up? There hasn't been one for the past week, anyway. If one happened right now, maybe you could come."

Kazu looked around, as though Takato saying that would summon a digimon.

"I don't think that's going to happen just because he said it," Henry said.

Naomi signed to Rika, "Do your friends wanna meet my friends, do you think?"

Rika frowned slightly, and signed back, "I'm not sure. I don't think so. Maybe they'd want to, but they might get kinda freaked out. Takato and Henry could, maybe, but I'm not sure about the others."

"What are you saying?" Jeri asked them.

Rika shook her head, "Nothing."

"Hmm," Naomi said, then took out her phone.

"Hey, Naomi, did you ever finish learning to play digimon cards?" Kazu asked.

Naomi shook her head, continuing to text, "No. We've had stuff to do."

Kazu sighed, "That's no fun. I don't get to watch a digimon battle, you never learned to play digimon cards, nobody's doing anything."

Naomi laughed.

"We've been doing more important things," Rika said.

"Okay," Naomi said, putting her phone away, "Does anyone wanna come to my house right now?"

Rika sighed, "Seriously, what did I just say? I don't mean this in a bad way, but your friends really do seem weird to normal people."

"Weird? Sounds great, I'm in!" Kazu said, "Where's your house?"

"I think it's about half an hour's walk from here?" Naomi said.

"What? Walking?" Kenta whined.

"Well, you don't _have_ to come."

"Yeah, I don't know if I want to walk for a whole half hour," Kazu said.

"Suit yourself," Rika said, secretly glad that they were opting out.

* * *

"That really wasn't that long of a walk," Takato said when they got to where Naomi lived, "Wait, haven't we been here before?"

"Yeah," Rika said, "There was a digimon battle here. Naomi wandered into the middle of it, remember? Wait, I think you arrived late to that one."

Naomi, Rika, Takato, Henry and Jeri went into Naomi's house, where Wynter and Rio were.

Rio jumped up, "Are these all your girlfriend's friends? Are they digidestined too? Can I see your digimon?" he asked excitedly.

Henry turned to Naomi, "You told them about that?"

"They wanted to know how I got shot," she shrugged, "Though now that I think about it, maybe telling Rio wasn't the best idea. Generally you only tell him secrets that you want _not_ to be kept."

"Hey, I can keep a secret! Like, I didn't tell people that you-"

Wynter put his hand over Rio's mouth, "Think for half a second before you say things!"

Naomi quickly gestured to everyone in turn and signed their names to Wynter.

When he saw Jeri, he froze and backed away slightly, releasing Rio.

Naomi was confused, but looked over at Jeri, "Oh. What's your last name?"

"What? Katou, why? He looks like he's seen a ghost or something."

"It's your eyes," Naomi said.

Wynter relaxed slightly when he heard Jeri's last name.

"Wait, what's Shade's-"

Rio got cut off by Naomi, "How do you not know that? Don't your parents always tell you, 'stay away from the…'?"

"They tell me to stay away from a lot of people," he shrugged.

"Well, the important thing is it's clearly not the same as her last name," Naomi said, pointing to Jeri, "So it's fine."

"I'm… Really confused," Henry said.

"Yeah," Rika said, "This is what it's like around her friends. They reference a lot of stuff that they know about and we don't. It's really confusing."

"I could tell you-"

Naomi interrupted Rio again, "No!" She turned to Jeri, "Your eyes are a kinda similar colour to someone bad we used to know. That specific eye colour runs in their family. You don't have their last name, so you're not one of them, so Teri has nothing to be afraid of."

Wynter was sitting down, staring at the ground.

"Oh, okay," Jeri said, "Yeah, you don't need to worry or anything."

"Oh," Naomi said, "Also, that's Wynter, and that's Rio." She pointed to each of them.

Wynter closed his eyes and breathed slowly, seeming not to notice what anyone was saying.

"Is he okay?" Takato asked.

"Yeah, kinda," Naomi said.

"But Sh- That guy- Is dead now? Why does Teri still get so freaked out? He's never gonna see him again. It's not like he would've gotten reincarnated into some girl our age," Rio said.

"He could've faked his death," Wynter said shakily.

"You were there! Didn't you see?"

Wynter shook his head, "It was all a blur by that point. There was a gunshot, but I don't know what happened. And Ren pretends to be both of them now, but what if he ain't pretending at all?" he shuddered.

Naomi sat down next to Wynter, "Try not to freak yourself out. If he somehow isn't dead, I'll just kill him for real, okay? Don't worry." She hugged him.

Wynter tensed up at the contact, but slowly relaxed.

Takato, Henry and Jeri looked to Rika again.

"Yeah, this is kinda what it was like that night I met them before."

Wynter signed something fast and incoherent to Naomi, and she hugged him again.

Eventually, they pulled apart and stood up.

"Sorry," Wynter said, "Hey, you have goggles," he said to Takato.

"Oh, yeah. I was kinda just copying the tv show. I figured if I had a digimon then I was meant to have goggles."

"Doesn't that make you the leader or whatever?"

Naomi signed something.

"Is that the same quote again?" Wynter asked.

Naomi nodded, "But anyway, Masaru didn't have goggles."

"Which guy was that?" he asked.

"The one who punched digimon."

Wynter sighed, "Don't you do anything like that."

Naomi smiled and flapped her hands.

"She already stabs digimon," Henry said, then addressed Naomi, "I don't think you need to be any more impressive than that."

"Thank you! But no, punching a bad digimon is on my list of things to do now. Digisoul, charge!" she yelled.

"Wasn't it DNA?" Takato asked.

"I thought it was both," Wynter said.

"It depends if you watched the English or the Japanese," she turned to Wynter, "I made you watch both, so I guess you're mixing them up."

He shrugged, "Do all of you have digimon?" he asked, mostly addressing Henry and Jeri.

"I do," Henry said, "But Jeri doesn't."

"Maybe I can get one!" she said optimistically.

"I don't know," Takato said, "Then you'd have to be in danger."

"If Naomi can handle it, so can I!"

"How do you get a digimon?" Rio asked.

Rika, Takato and Henry all shrugged.

"It seems different for everyone," Takato said, "I created mine. Henry's came out of a video game. Rika- What happened with you again?"

"After I won that card tournament, this portal opened or something. I said I wanted the strongest digimon, and I got Renamon."

"Hmm," Naomi said, "I don't think they were listening, then, unless strength is relative. They probably gave you who you were destined to have, or the digimon you'd be strongest with as a combination. Otherwise, why not a mega level?"

Rika thought for a second, "I don't know. Well, I wouldn't trade her. She's my partner now, and I think we are good together."

"Wait, it was after you won the card tournament?" Rio said, "So I bet that other guy _did_ get sucked into the digital world! If whoever wins gets targeted."

"...I guess," Rika said.

Suddenly, Naomi froze, and started looking around.

"What?" Rika and Wynter asked at the same time.

"Don't you feel that? Or hear it?" she asked frantically.

Everyone was silent.

"No," Henry said, "What is it?"

"Static," she said, "Or something like that. It's everywhere. It's like the air turned into electricity. It's just getting more and more-" she covered her ears and whined slightly, then ran outside.

Everyone ran after her.

"What do you mean?" Wynter asked.

Naomi breathed heavily and shook, "It's- It's-"

"What?" Rika asked.

"It's-"

Naomi then fell to her knees, shaking and covering her ears, and screamed.

At that moment, Rika, Takato and Henry's digivices all started beeping, and a digital field appeared a few yards away from them.

"What the hell is that?" Wynter yelled, "A ball of cloud? Is that the static? Has this happened before? Is that a digimon?"

"Renamon!" Rika called, and Renamon appeared, carrying Guilmon and Terriermon. She put them down, the each digimon went over to their partners.

Henry turned to Wynter, "It's a digital field. It's what happens when a wild digimon appears. Naomi's never freaked out like that over one appearing, though."

When the fog dissipated, Naomi collapsed, and continued to breathe heavily.

"Hang on," Renamon said, then disappeared and returned with Impmon.

"Hey, I don't need to be carried like some kind of baby!" Impmon yelled.

"You're welcome," Renamon said.

"This is so awesome!" Rio yelled.

"No it's not! Stay back! It's bad enough Naomi's in danger, you don't need to get killed too!" Wynter said.

Impmon went over to Naomi, "Hey, what's wrong with you?"

She got up, "Nothing. There was static, like screaming. It got more and more intense, but then the digital field appeared and it stopped."

"That's… That's a little like how it feels to me when a digimon is near."

"What?"

"It must be the data in you, reacting to it."

Naomi shivered slightly, "Well, it was awful."

"Maybe you shouldn't do stupid things, then."

Naomi just laughed, "It's too late for that."

"Hey, it's Infermon!" Rio yelled, "He was in the digimon movie! Is it the same one?"

"No," Takato answered, "It's a different one every time. They just keep appearing, though."

"Network grenade!"

Everyone screamed and moved out of the way of the bullets.

"Bada boom!" Impmon threw a fireball into Infermon's mouth, and some sparks of electricity flew off Infermon, though it was otherwise undamaged.

Infermon quickly extended a tentacle towards Impmon in response, but Naomi took out her knife and slashed it away.

"Stop doing things like that!" Impmon yelled, "You'll get yourself killed! Are you trying to make me owe you?"

"No," Naomi said, "It was a reflex. It's just what I feel like I'm supposed to do."

Impmon sighed, "Stupid humans."

Rika, Takato and Henry all swiped a card at the same time, "Digivolution activate!"

"Aww," Rio said, "All they did was glow and get bigger. I thought there'd be music and stuff like in the show."

Wynter raised an eyebrow, "Where would music come from? Would they start singing?"

Rio shrugged.

"I could get Brave Heart or something up on my phone and play it if you wanted!" Naomi yelled over to Rio.

"How about you focus on not getting killed?" Wynter yelled back.

Naomi shrugged and turned back to the battle.

Jeri stared at Infermon, "Is he really evil?"

"Naomi tried talking to it last time and it just grabbed her, so yeah, we think so," Takato said.

Jeri frowned, and took out her puppet and made it bark quietly.

Infermon quickly shot out a tentacle, and grabbed Jeri, who screamed.

"Huh," Naomi said, "Do they like grabbing girls, girls in dresses, or just anyone who acts like it might be worth trying to talk to them?"

Everyone else collectively tensed up, since this was exactly the same situation as last time.

"Maybe each one learns from the previous one?" Rika said, "But that wouldn't make any sense, would it? Because their data isn't going anywhere."

"Unless they're communicating with each other somehow, like maybe broadcasting every battle to the others as it happens?" Henry said.

"That still doesn't make sense."

"None of this makes sense."

"P-Put her down!" Takato yelled at Infermon.

Infermon didn't respond, just continued to hold onto Jeri.

"Maybe they're being sent here to test us?" Naomi wondered out loud.

"Test you for what?" Impmon asked.

"I don't know. Like to see if we're good enough for something."

Takato looked through his cards, trying to see if there was anything useful, "Maybe if I combined every speed boost I have, Growlmon would be fast enough to cut through the tentacle before it got electrified?"

"I kinda don't think so," Rika said.

Naomi looked at Infermon, wondering how fast its reflexes were.

"I have an idea," she said.

Everyone turned to her.

"If Kyuubimon can digivolve to Taomon again and do the same thing she did for me, then problem solved. But otherwise, try dedigivolving into Renamon, then use all the speed cards you have on _her_ , and I can give her my knife and she can cut the tentacle with that, and her and Jeri can just hope neither of them get electrocuted."

"I can make Renamon electricity-proof with a card," Rika said, looking through her cards, "But that would still be kinda risky for Jeri."

"Is that really the best option?" Takato asked, distressed, "It sounds too dangerous, I don't want her getting hurt."

"I felt the same with Naomi last time," Rika said, "I just don't know if there is any other option. The blue card's disappeared again, so I can't get Taomon to cast a spell or anything."

Takato frowned, and looked over to Jeri, "Are you okay?"

Jeri smiled, "I'm fine, don't worry!"

"I'm sorry for bringing you here, I'm sorry for telling you Guilmon existed in the first place! I'm sorry for putting you in danger!"

"It's not your fault!"

"I-"

"Network grenade!"

Everyone dodged the bullet again, and Jeri screamed as the recoil caused the tentacle holding her to shake and swing around.

The card Takato was holding glowed and turned blue. He looked at it.

"Hang on!" Naomi said, "What's Growlmon's ultimate form?"

"I don't know," Takato said, "I mean, I created him, so we can't look it up or anything, but I'd kinda been thinking of a big dragon with missiles? Or lasers?"

"So, basically, something completely useless when it comes to acting faster than electricity or otherwise solving this, right?"

Takato thought for a second, then passed the blue card to Rika.

"I really don't think it works like that," she said, "You're the one it turned blue for. But I'll try. Digivolution activate!" she swiped the card, but nothing happened.

"Well, okay then, never mind," Naomi said.

Rika passed the card back to Takato, who swiped it, "Digivolution activate!"

Growlmon digivolved into Wargrowlmon, and Takato held his digivice up to get information.

"Wargrowlmon, ultimate level. Attacks, atomic blaster and radiation blade."

"Did you not know that already? Since you made him up?" Naomi asked.

"No, like I said, I just came up with a kinda vague concept. Atomic blaster must be the laser thing, though."

Wargrowlmon looked down to Takato, "What do I do?"

"Uh, nothing. I guess you just get to look really cool."

Kyuubimon dedigivolved to Renamon, then looked at Rika, who immediately swiped four cards in succession.

"Digi modify! Speed boost, activate! Acceleration, activate! Super speed, activate! Rubber, activate!"

Naomi passed her knife to Renamon, "Good luck!"

Takato grimaced, "I'm sorry, Jeri! I hope this works!"

Jeri smiled, though it didn't seem as genuine as before, "Don't worry, really! I've gone through worse!"

"Worse… Than electrocution?" Naomi asked.

"I kinda meant the being held hostage by a tentacle thing," Jeri laughed, but cried out suddenly as she fell to the ground, from the tentacle being cut.

Renamon passed Naomi's knife back to her, and bowed.

"Wow, that _was_ faster than electricity!" Naomi said.

Jeri looked around, slightly confused, then got up and ran over to the others.

"Okay, so, the next time Infermon takes a hostage, we'll do that again," Rika said.

"N-"

"Diamond storm!" Renamon cut Infermon off by attacking before it could even begin firing a bullet.

Infermon's data looked slightly less stable.

"I can finish him off," Wargrowlmon said, "Atomic blaster!"

He fired lasers from his chest at Infermon, who immediately shattered into data.

Naomi gasped as if she'd had the breath pulled out of her, and ran towards the data, " _Oh, shit_ ," she yelled.

"Naomi? What are you doing? What's wrong?" Wynter asked, running towards her now that it was safe.

"It's like a magnet!" she screamed, "I can't- I need to-" she trailed off as she just screamed, and Infermon's data began to be pulled towards her.

"What the fuck is happening?" Wynter asked.

"I- I don't know," Rika said.

"You're a human, you can't do that!" Impmon said.

"No!" Naomi yelled, "This is stronger than anything I've ever felt! I can't resist it! _Oh fuck!_ "

She resumed screaming as the data was sucked into her, as if she was inhaling it directly through her skin. She got calmer and quieter as more data went into her, and eventually went silent once she'd absorbed about half of it.

She collapsed then, panting heavily and shaking.

Wynter and Rika both ran over and crouched down next to her.

"Babe, what the fuck was that?" Wynter asked, shaking Naomi.

Her eyes closed and she didn't respond at all.

He turned to Rika, "What the fuck was that? Did she do that before? Is she even still human?"

Rika just stared at Naomi.

Impmon went slightly closer, "The first time I saw her she said she wasn't a human, and tried to absorb data then. But she was joking, right?"

Rika nodded, "Y-Yeah, she was just trying to mess with you, but it did confuse me for a second back then, too," she turned to Wynter, "But, uh, last time, she tried to breathe in the data. That was how she burned her throat. I didn't think it would do anything. I tried it before too- not the inhaling, the absorbing- but I just passed out."

"You _let her_ -? Never mind, sorry, it's not like you could've fucking gagged her, I guess," Wynter sighed, "I know firsthand how hard it can be to stop her from doing reckless shit. And it ain't like I'm much better, but this is a whole other level. She _inhaled_ a shattered digimon?"

"It ain't that weird," Impmon said, "It's what digimon do to get stronger. We beat other digimon, absorb their data, and then it's like we have their power plus our own. Humans aren't meant to do that, though."

Wynter stared down at Naomi, making sure she was still breathing.

"She always wanted to be special," he said quietly, "She always said she wanted to be a digidestined or a main character or something. But I always thought she was already special, that even if digimon and all that didn't exist, she was still… I don't know, she was still special to me. I told her she didn't need to go putting herself in danger just be to special, because she already was. And now that digimon are real, isn't knowing someone who has one enough for her? Why does she need to take it to this whole other level? What's she even trying to accomplish?"

Rika didn't know what to say to that.

"Sorry," Wynter said, "I'm just thinking out loud. I hope she's not dead." He gently stroked Naomi's head, then stood up.

"She's still breathing," Rika said.

"I know," Wynter said, frowning anyway.


	17. Chapter 17

It had been a few hours, and Naomi was still unconscious, but now on the floor of her and Wynter's house. Henry, Takato, Rio and Jeri had all left, but Rika stayed with Wynter as the two of them watched over Naomi.

Rika couldn't help remembering what Wynter had said a week ago about her being a "danger magnet", and she felt more and more guilty with the more time went by without Naomi waking up.

"I hope she wakes up soon," Rika whispered.

"You said you tried to do that before and you passed out. How long did it take you to wake up then?"

"I think just a few minutes, the same as the first time Naomi tried it. But when she breathed it in it didn't knock her out."

"Maybe she's tired from all the screaming," he said, "It probably gave her an adrenaline rush. But still, it's been hours."

"Has anything like this happened before? Like, that she just passed out and wouldn't wake up?"

Wynter thought for a minute, "Not exactly. Sometimes if she got really upset and flipped out really badly a few times in one day she'd kinda crash, or the same thing if she had a particularly bad customer."

It took Rika a second to get what he meant by that, but she shuddered when she did.

"That's pretty much it, though. And never for this long."

"Maybe she is just really really exhausted," Rika said, not even managing to convince herself at all.

"I couldn't imagine what kinda strain absorbing data could put on your body, since it ain't meant for that," Wynter said.

"I know when I tried it before, it was agonising. I think that was the reason it made me pass out."

Wynter reached out and gently shook Naomi's shoulder, then jumped back when she seemed to move slightly.

Naomi groaned almost inaudibly, and her eyes flickered as though they were trying to open.

"Hey," Wynter said, "Wake up. Are you okay?"

Naomi opened her eyes properly, and blinked a few times, "Ow."

"What happened back there?" Wynter asked.

"It was like the data was pulling me," she whispered, "It was like I was craving it, but it was stronger than I've ever craved or needed anything before. Seriously. It hurt going into me, but it made the feeling inside me stop."

"That's really weird," Rika said, "Maybe you _should_ let Yamaki run tests on you."

Naomi whined quietly, "No. What if he hates trans people?"

"Are you like, half digimon now?" Wynter asked.

"I don't know, maybe. Wouldn't it be so cool if I was?"

Wynter shook his head, "No!"

Naomi lifted one hand as though she was going to sign something, then groaned and put it down.

"Are you okay?" Rika asked.

"Tired," Naomi said, and closed her eyes again, "It's like all my energy is gone. Maybe it all went into absorbing the data. I don't know."

Wynter reached out and gently touched Naomi's shoulder, "Don't go back to sleep. What if you don't wake up?"

Naomi sighed and opened her eyes again, "Fine. But that won't happen, don't worry."

"Honestly, that was the weirdest shit I've ever seen. You _absorbed_ a _digimon_ through your _skin_ ," Wynter sighed, " _Why_ did you breathe in data before?"

Naomi shrugged and smiled.

"You're _already_ special, you don't need to do stupid shit like that just to feel like you're in an anime."

Naomi laughed but said nothing.

Wynter rolled his eyes.

"Should I leave her here so you can look after her?" Rika asked hesitantly, "I don't want to leave her, but I assume you feel the same, and this _is_ where she actually lives."

"...Yeah," Wynter said, "But you could stay if you wanted. I know if she went to your place I'd be worried, but if she stays here you'd be worried. Though it might be better if she went with you, actually, 'cause I'm usually gone for half the night."

"I'm not sick or injured," Naomi said, and half sat up, "I don't need supervision or for you to worry or anything."

She immediately dropped back down, shaking slightly.

"Yeah, okay," Wynter said sarcastically.

"I'm just tired," she said weakly.

"I know you just objected to this, but seriously, are you _sure_ you won't let Yamaki run tests on you? I wouldn't let him hurt you," Rika said, "And you might need medical attention or something, but like… Digital medical attention."

Naomi sighed, "Why don't you ask Renamon, then?"

Rika thought for a minute, then called Renamon, "Renamon."

Renamon appeared in the room, and Wynter jumped.

"Holy shit! Where did you come from?"

Renamon bowed, "I apologise for startling you."

"Okay, but how did you do that?"

"I can move very fast, blend into shadows, and effectively teleport."

Wynter looked confused, "Well… Okay."

"Does Naomi seem okay?" Rika asked her, "Like, do you think it's dangerous for a human to absorb data like that?"

"Honestly, I have no idea," Renamon said, "I'm sorry. I already don't know much about humans apart from what I've learned since coming to this world, along with vague rumors I'd heard in the digital world. I wouldn't have ever thought that a human could absorb data in the first place, so, I don't know any more about this than you do."

"Neither would ghostbuster," Naomi said.

"He might have a _chance_ of knowing something," Rika said.

"If he tries anything with you you can just kill him," Wynter said.

Naomi sighed, "You don't even _know_ him."

"I don't need to know _him_ to know you could kill him," Wynter smiled, "And if this guy does know something about digimon then maybe he'd be the one most able to make sure you're okay."

Naomi was quiet.

"I could find and contact Yamaki, if you like," Renamon said.

"Fine," Naomi said, "I guess if _both_ of you think I should let Yamaki do tests or something then maybe you're right."

Renamon nodded, and disappeared.

A few minutes later, she returned, carrying Yamaki.

Wynter jumped again when she appeared, and tensed up noticeably when he saw that Yamaki was dressed like a stereotypical secret agent, with a black suit and sunglasses.

"That was the most strange and humiliating thing I've ever experienced," Yamaki said, as Renamon put him down.

"Take off your creepy sunglasses and jacket or I'll kill you," Naomi signed.

Yamaki turned to Rika, "What did she say?"

"That's… Not much of a threat from down there," Rika said to Naomi.

Wynter switched off the light so that the room was mostly dark, causing Yamaki to remove his sunglasses so he could see properly.

"Clever!" Naomi signed.

"She asked you to take off your sunglasses and jacket because they're creepy," Rika said.

"Oh," Yamaki said, and took off his suit jacket, "You can switch the light back on. Why is she on the floor? Renamon said that she absorbed data and then fell unconscious for a few hours?"

Wynter switched the light back on, then signed to Naomi, "Who or what the fuck is he?" he gestured to Yamaki, "Is he some kind of cop? What the hell? Is he a ghostbuster like you said? Why do you call him that, anyway? I changed my mind, I don't know if I trust him with you."

"Lol," Naomi signed.

"She calls him "ghostbuster" because he has this device that sucks in the data of digimon," Rika said.

"What does that have to do with ghosts?" Wynter asked out loud.

"It's a reference to a movie," Naomi signed, "It doesn't matter."

"Oh, and apparently he's a government agent," Rika said, "But I don't really know what exactly that involves. I think he seems trustworthy enough, or at least he has so far."

Naomi nodded.

"I am right here, you know," Yamaki said.

"Naomi's on the floor because you can't fall off a floor," Wynter said, answering Yamaki's question, "And yeah, she screamed and said she couldn't resist it and it was like a really strong pull or craving, then the bits of the shattered digimon just kinda flew into her, and then she passed out."

"It felt like…" Naomi hesitated, "I guess Teri described it best, it was like something in me was pulling me and it needed the data, like a really strong craving. I wanna say it was kinda like the way you'd need to breathe after holding your breath for a really long time, but it was way stronger than that."

"You absorbed data before, didn't you?" Yamaki asked.

"I inhaled it," she said, "Not like this. This time I wasn't doing it on purpose, and it went in through my skin. Like the way digimon do it."

Yamaki raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"When she inhaled data that time you said you wanted to try running tests on her," Rika said, "And now we all kind of think that might actually be a good idea."

"Right," Yamaki said, "My immediate hypothesis is that you've somehow become part-digimon by absorbing data, but I have no idea whether that's something that's possible for all humans or if it's just you, and if it's just you, then what it is about you that makes you special."

Naomi signed something to Wynter.

Wynter laughed, then turned to Yamaki, "How would you know if it's just her? By making other people try to breathe in data and see what happens?"

Yamaki hesitated, "That does seem like the only viable method… But it would be extremely unethical. Though Hypnos isn't really confined by the same codes of ethics as other branches of government since we strictly speaking don't exist… I would rather get some volunteers than to just "make people", however."

"What the fuck is Hypnos, then? And what are you? "Government agent" doesn't mean anything to me," Wynter said, "And if you got volunteers, then you'd only end up with people that are the same kind of stupid as Naomi- that is, people who think it's a good idea to do completely reckless shit just because it's exciting- so you might just get the same result because they'd all be the same."

"Could recklessness really be the common factor as to who would be susceptible to that kind of thing?"

Naomi nodded emphatically and sat up.

“I think so, yeah,” Wynter said, “But seriously, what are you and what is Hypnos?”

“Hypnos is a secret branch of government which monitors data transmission for abnormalities,” Yamaki said, “We never really had much to do until these things- digimon, apparently- started showing up in the network. At first we thought it was just data behaving abnormally, that is, that the problem was confined to the internet. But then we realised that the surges and strange signals we were detecting matched up with monsters that were appearing in the real world and doing actual damage. So now, Hypnos’s main job is to try to destroy digimon, and stop them from harming this world, or even appearing in it in the first place.”

“...Okay,” Wynter said, “So, how do you know Naomi and the others?”

“I- or my employees- would go to the locations of these aberrations as they appeared to try to stop them. It turned out that those kids,” he gestured to Rika, “Were doing the same thing, and had actually been having slightly more success in preventing the wild digimon from causing significant damage. Basically, I met them because we kept going to the same locations at the same time.”

“Right… I don’t really get it, but if you work for the government, do you arrest people?”

“I have to admit that I’m curious why you’re asking, but no, that’s a completely different sector. I don’t personally have any power like that, unless it was do with data transmission, but even then, my authority is limited.”

Wynter thought for a second, then nodded, “Okay.”

Yamaki addressed Naomi, “Would you like to come to Hypnos now?”

Naomi nodded and stood up, then immediately passed out.

Both Rika and Wynter reflexively reached out to catch her, and Renamon then took her from them.

"I assume it would be easiest if I brought you both?" Renamon asked Yamaki.

"I guess so," Yamaki said hesitantly.

Renamon adjusted her positioning of Naomi so that she could pick up Yamaki at the same time, then brought them both to Hypnos.


	18. Chapter 18

Naomi woke up strapped to a metal table, with multiple wires and electrodes attached to her. She jumped slightly and briefly felt scared, before remembering that she’d agreed to go to Hypnos and let Yamaki run tests on her, and that that was obviously where she was now.

She looked around at the various machines in the room, and tried to see what the ones she was connected to were saying.

“Oh, you’re awake,” a person said, “I’m Riley, Yamaki’s assistant.”

Naomi was silent. She couldn’t get herself to speak, since she didn’t know this person and was intimidated by the weird situation she was in, and she also couldn’t sign since her arms were restrained, though she figured Riley probably wouldn’t understand sign language, anyway.

She whined quietly, and tried to move her arms.

Riley took the straps off Naomi’s arms.

Naomi reached into her pocket for her phone, but it wasn’t there.

“We took everything metal or electronic out of your pockets, in case it interfered with some of the tests,” Riley said, though she took Naomi’s phone from a nearby table and handed it to her.

Naomi made her phone read out what she typed, “Thank you. I can’t speak right now. What do the tests say?”

“We actually have no idea,” Riley said, “We’re taking a lot of measurements that aren’t usually taken from humans in the first place, and Yamaki’s trying to compare the results to results we’ve gotten from analysing various digimons’ data. But the problem is, the results from digimons’ data already weren’t consistent in any way, so it’s hard to make a proper comparison. The fact that we can even run some of these tests on you at all is kind of a strang sign in itself, though.”

“Why?”

“We tried them on some employees in order to have a control to measure against,” she said, “And it just… Didn’t work. They didn’t have a strong enough electrical signal to measure at all.”

Naomi’s eyes widened slightly, though she wasn’t sure of the implications of that.

“We aren’t sure what exactly that indicates,” Riley said, as though reading Naomi’s thoughts, “We already know that all humans have weak electrical signals in them. Clearly our equipment isn’t sensitive enough to pick up on those- which it doesn’t need to be- but it can pick up on yours just fine. We just don’t know what exactly that means, apart from that obviously, you have extremely strong electrical signals compared to the average human being.”

“Hmm,” Naomi said out loud, and tried to think about that. In a way, that didn’t really tell her anything she didn’t already know. It was already extremely obvious that absorbing data had changed her in some way, since she was now affected by digital fields, and felt compelled to absorb more data when it was there.

“What about digimon?” she typed, “What kind of results on those tests do they have?”

“Well, instead of showing up as  _ having _ electrical signals, they show up as  _ being _ electrical signals, which makes sense since they’re composed entirely of data,” Riley said.

“So basically, my test results could be considered to mean that I’m partly but not entirely composed of data. Which is really obvious,” Naomi typed.

“Pretty much, yes,” Riley smiled.

Naomi shrugged, then typed, “So that was kinda pointless, wasn’t it? If all the test did was confirm something we already knew?”

“Well, it’s always good to have solid confirmation.”

Naomi rolled her eyes, “So, does that mean it’s all done?”

“Not quite,” Riley said, “There’s some measurements being taken from you. But it’ll be done soon, and then you can leave.”

Naomi nodded.

* * *

When the tests were done, Renamon appeared and brought Naomi back to her house, where Rika and Wynter were waiting.

“Are you okay?” they both asked simultaneously.

Naomi laughed and sat down on the ground, “Yeah.”

“What did they do, exactly?” Wynter asked.

“I was unconscious for a lot of it, but it seems like all they really did was attach wires to me and take measurements. They basically said that I had a stronger electrical signal than humans are meant to have, but it’s different from a digimon. Which basically means that I’m partly data. Which is really obvious, because  _ of course _ I’m partly data if I started out being zero data and then absorbed some.”

Wynter looked down, “So, they didn’t say if it was dangerous or anything?”

“I don’t think they know,” Naomi said, “But I think if I seemed like I was gonna die, or didn’t have a heartbeat anymore or something, then they would’ve said that.”

“Well, at least you seem okay,” Rika said, “Especially since you aren’t collapsing or passing out anymore.”

Naomi shrugged, “I still feel a bit weird and shaky. I think my body just got scared by absorbing data, like it wasn’t expecting it or something.”

“Well, yeah,” Wynter said, “It obviously ain’t meant for that.”

* * *

 

A few days later, Rika and Naomi were both in school, though the day was nearly over.

Naomi suddenly felt something like a shiver go through her entire body, and had a faint feeling of static in the distance. She also felt as though she was being pulled towards it, or as if it was calling her. She wondered if this meant a digital field was appearing; it wasn’t as intense and unbearable as the last time, but last time she’d been right next to it, and this one seemed far away.

The feeling gradually got more and more intense, and she started shaking slightly as she tried not to scream or do anything that would draw attention to herself.

When class was over, she ran from the room, and Rika followed her.

“Where are you going?” Rika asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, as she ran out of the school grounds with Rika following her, “It’s like it’s calling me.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know.”

Rika’s digivice started beeping then, and she realised that the directions her digivice was giving her led in the same direction that Naomi was going.

“Oh,” she said, “A digital field.”

They got there soon enough, and Renamon quickly showed up along with the other digimon, with Takato and Henry soon after.

“How did you get here so fast?” Takato asked them.

“Naomi sensed it before my digivice did,” Rika said.

“It was like I was being pulled towards something,” Naomi said.

The fog faded, and, of course, it was yet another Infermon. But this time, its eyes glowed white, and it began to speak.

“Humans and traitorous digimon,” it began, in a voice that sounded like a young child, “Stop destroying our surveillance devices.”

“...What?” Henry asked.

“But didn’t they attack us first?” Takato asked.

“Actually, I don’t really remember,” Henry said, frowning, “But it could be that we were so used to being attacked by wild digimon that we initiated it the first time.”

“Yes, you did,” the Infermon said, “We’ve had to keep sending new surveillance digimon because you keep destroying them every time.”

Everyone was silent.

“So… We’re actually the bad guys this time?” Terriermon asked.

Henry grimaced, but said nothing.

“W-We’re sorry,” Takato said, “We didn’t know. Usually when a digimon appear like this it just starts attacking everyone and destroying everything, and we have to stop it, so we just kinda assumed…” he looked down.

“Hey, they’re still perfectly good data, no matter what they were meant for!” Impmon said, “What did you expect to happen?”

The Infermon didn’t respond.

“What are you like, surveillancing?” Naomi asked.

“We’re looking for a specific digimon,” it said, “Well, we were actually looking for a few, but we’ve managed to at least locate all of them except one.”

“Why are you looking here, though?” Takato asked, “This is the human world.”

“That’s because, as you said yourselves, digimon keep accidentally passing through from our world to yours, and we’ve searched the entire digital world multiple times now. We’re completely certain that the final digimon we need to find is not in our world, and is most likely in yours,” the Infermon paused, “But, none of the digimon we’ve found so far in this world are mega level, or even anything close to it, so it almost seems as though the one we’re looking for doesn’t even exist.”

“Huh,” Takato said, “That is weird. What digimon is it? Maybe we could help?”

“Beelzemon,” the Infermon said, “Though if we can’t find him, I doubt you humans could, and it would be pretty pathetic for  _ us _ to accept help from creatures like  _ you _ .”

“Why are you gathering specific digimon, anyway?” Rika asked.

“That’s nothing to do with you,” the Infermon said.

“Is there not like, multiple of every digimon?” Naomi asked, “Like, do you need this one specific Beelzemon, or could you not just find another one?”

“There are multiple occurrences of most digimon, but not these, including Beelzemon. There’s only one of each, which is part of why it’s so difficult to track them down.”

“And you’re sure that this digimon must be here, and couldn’t be anywhere else?” Henry asked.

“We might be more sure in either direction if you would stop destroying our surveillance devices and let us check in your world properly,” it said.

“You should really have gotten something smaller and less weird-looking,” Naomi said, “Most humans would be freaked out by a Kurisarimon or an Infermon going around, and would probably try to attack it or capture it or something.”

“I didn’t ask for your input,  _ human _ ,” the Infermon said, “How humans react to our surveillance devices doesn’t really matter, since I doubt most of them could impair them to the same extent that you all do.”

Naomi just shrugged, “I still think something that could turn invisible would’ve made more sense.”

The Infermon’s eyes abruptly stopped glowing, and it walked away from the tamers, who didn’t try to stop it.

“Are we really just going to let it go like that?” Rika asked, “We don’t even know who or what these guys are or what they’re trying to do.”

Takato shrugged, “I don’t know, I feel kinda bad. And they’ll just keep sending more if we keep killing them, and they’d eventually end up sending a mega level, and then what would we do? Killing Infermons has been hard enough.”

“I feel awful,” Henry said quietly, “They weren’t even trying to attack us or hurt us, but we still treated them as though they were and killed them anyway. They weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“That’s what digimon do!” Impmon said, “We fight, absorb each other’s data, and get stronger! They’d have to be stupid if they expected it to be any different here!”

“Impmon has a point,” Renamon said, “In the digital world, digimon usually have to fight each other just to survive, and it’s expected that you must either kill or be killed. I see why it seems awful to you, but to them, we weren’t treating them any differently than what they would’ve always known.”

“I don’t know if that really helps,” Henry said, “I already always felt so guilty about fighting; I was only okay with it because we had no other choice if we wanted to protect innocent people. But in this case,  _ we’re _ the ones who started it, and we  _ did _ have another choice the whole time.”

“Well, we know that  _ now _ , yeah, but at the time we didn’t,” Naomi said, “I feel bad too, but just… Try not to worry about it.”

After a few minutes, Impmon left, Renamon brought Guilmon back to his hideout, and Terriermon rested on Henry’s head.

“So…” Naomi said, “Do you think whoever was speaking through that Infermon was like oblivious, or just really pedantic?”

“What do you mean?” Henry asked.

“Impmon’s mega form is Beelzemon, isn’t it?”

Takato’s eyes widened, “You’re right! Maybe they just don’t know that.”

“I didn’t know my champion form was Gargomon until I digivolved the first time,” Terriermon said, “I think most digimon don’t know things like that unless they see someone else digivolve or dedigivolve.”

“Oh,” Naomi said, “I thought things like that would be common knowledge. It is to me. I wasn’t sure if they just didn’t know that, or if for some reason they only wanted a digimon that was  _ currently _ Beelzemon, as opposed to one that  _ could become _ Beelzemon.”

“So, should we tell them?” Takato asked.

“No!” Rika said, “We don’t even know what they want, or what they’re trying to do! They could be trying to destroy the world for all we know, and by giving them Impmon, we’d be helping them do it!”

“Also, I like him,” Naomi said, “I don’t want him to go away.”

“You  _ like _ him?” Terriermon asked, “All he does is pretend to be strong when he’s not, and act like he hates humans and is too good to have a partner! I think he can be really annoying. ...Though, I guess that doesn’t mean we should just give him away to some weirdo.”

Naomi folded her arms, “He isn’t ours to give, anyway. Though I don’t know if we should tell him that he’s the one they want, or wait for them to figure it out themselves and tell him.”

“I’d say see if they figure it out themselves,” Rika said, “Because I still think that whatever they’re trying to do might be something bad, and if we tell him, he might just go along with them.”

“Hmm,” Naomi said, “It seems wrong to just… Withhold important information from him in case he’d respond in a way we didn’t want.”

“We don’t know what those people want!” Rika said, “They could want to destroy the world for all we know! I know that sounds pretty extreme, but you just never know.”

“Now that I think about it, yeah,” Takato said, “If the tv show is anything to go by, then what else could they want?”

“Hmm,” Naomi said, “You’ve got me there. And they did address your partners as ‘traitorous digimon’, so they don’t seem to like humans.”

“We can’t just base our assumptions on what happened in the digimon tv show,” Henry said.

“Why not? It seems reasonable to me,” Naomi said.

Henry frowned again and sighed.

“If most digimon don’t know what they digivolve into anyway, then I think we shouldn’t tell Impmon,” Takato said, “Since if we weren’t here, then he wouldn’t know and they wouldn’t know.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Henry said, “If we don’t tell him, it isn’t really us altering the outcome of anything; it’s just us not interfering.”

“I’m not sure, I still think it’s purposely withholding information,” Naomi said, “But I guess you could look at it your way, too, and it does seem less wrong from that angle to not say anything.”

“Right, so we won’t say anything,” Rika said.

Everyone nodded.

Henry looked up at Terriermon, “That includes you, too. I know how bad you can be at not saying things.”

“Momentai, I won’t tell him. It probably won't even come up,” Terriermon said.


	19. Chapter 19

That weekend, the Tamers were in the park, along with Kazu, Kenta and Jeri, and of course Naomi, who had also brought a reluctant Wynter along.

Kazu and Kenta had started off playing digimon cards, but it had devolved into an argument about strategy, which everyone else was staying out of.

"I really don't wanna be here," Wynter whispered to Naomi.

"I think Rika said she felt the same way when she came out with us that night, if that helps," she replied.

"Not really. Why didn't you drag Rio here instead of me, or at least as well? He'd actually like it."

Naomi shrugged, "Apparently he's grounded, though he wouldn't tell me what he did this time."

Wynter rolled his eyes, "That's never stopped him before."

"I think sneaking out is easier at night."

Wynter shrugged and didn't respond.

Jeri walked over to them, "What are you talking about?"

Wynter froze and stared at her, though the more he looked, the clearer it was that her eyes were more hazel-ish than gold, and he calmed down slightly.

"Nothing really," Naomi said.

Naomi suddenly felt slightly strange, and looked around. It felt kind of similar to when a digital field appeared, but much less intense, and it also seemed as though a digital field wasn't about to appear.

"What's wrong?" Rika asked.

"Something," Naomi said, still looking around. She spotted the Infermon from before in the distance, and relaxed, since that seemed to be the cause of the weird feeling. But did that mean she could sense digimon in general now?

The Infermon came over, holding Calumon in one tentacle. Its eyes then glowed white.

"Whoa!" Kazu yelled, "Are we gonna see a digimon battle now?"

"No," Takato said, "Apparently all the digimon that kept appearing- well, the Infermons and Kurisarimons- were being used to look for something, and they just kept sending more because we kept destroying them."

"...That's not very exciting," Kazu said.

"Humans," the Infermon said, "What is this?" it asked, shaking the tentacle that was holding Calumon, who laughed.

"That's Calumon," Takato said.

"It told me that much," the Infermon said, "But this isn't a digimon."

"Yes it is," multiple people said at once.

"If Calumon's not a digimon, then what difference does it make?" Naomi asked, "That just means he's _really_ not the one you're looking for, and so he's irrelevant to you, right?"

"He could be useful to us," the Infermon said.

"Well, too bad," Takato said, "You can't have him! You can't just take him!"

The Infermon stared directly at Takato, but didn't respond to what he said.

"Anyway, it appears that Beelzemon is not in this world," it said, "Though he's also not in our world, either."

"And you're completely sure that the one you're looking for _does_ exist?" Naomi asked, with a hint of frustration.

"Yes. It's impossible for him not to."

"So, if you can't find Beelzemon, why not try and find a digimon that can _become_ Beelzemon?"

Rika glared at Naomi, "Why are you helping them?"

"It's just really annoying me that they seem not to have thought of that, or figured it out. I'm not trying to help them."

"We don't know which digimon is capable of turning into Beelzemon. All we know is which digi-egg it would have to have been, but most digimon don't know what their own digi-egg looked like."

"I just don't get how you can't just find out or something!" Naomi said.

"Don't be ridiculous! We've checked every database we have- the same way we confirmed that this isn't a digimon-" it shook Calumon again, "And there is very little information on which digimon are capable of becoming which. There's generally no information for digimon that there are only one of, because that makes the chances of anyone having witnessed their evolution too low."

Naomi sighed and took out her phone.

"What are you doing?" Wynter asked, looking over her shoulder to see.

A minute later, she held her phone up to the Infermon, "See? Here's a picture of the evolution lines that can lead to Beelzemon, with some details cut out so that it won't help you _too_ much."

"How did you do that? Where did you get that?" the Infermon asked in surprise, "Though that leaves too many possibilities. We couldn't round up every Wizardmon in the digital world, for example, just to find out which one of them is capable of becoming Beelzemon."

Naomi shrugged, and put her phone back in her pocket, "Well, what else can you do? Are you just gonna give up then, or what?"

"Hmm," the Infermon said, "I guess we'll have to try searching for the digimon from that image. We'll continue surveillancing this world, though. As much as I hate to say this to an inferior life form, thank you for your help."

"You're welcome!" Naomi said.

The Infermon's eyes stopped glowing, and it dropped Calumon- who then flew over to Jeri- and walked away.

Rika looked over to Naomi, "Okay, that was clever. Sorry for accusing you of trying to help them," she said.

"Well, I kinda was," Naomi said, "Like I said, it annoyed me that they couldn't figure out something that's so obvious to us. So I did help them. I just cut off everything before champion level on the digivolution chart I found."

Rika laughed slightly.

"That seems more like sending them on a wild goose chase than helping," Henry said, smiling.

Naomi shrugged, "It depends. They implied that not every instance of every digimon on the evolution line is 'capable' of becoming Beelzemon, so it's possible that the Impmon here isn't the one they want, anyway."

"I think they said that about Wizardmon because it's possible for Wizardmon to become a lot of things," Takato said, "But Impmon's the only rookie level that can eventually lead to Beelzemon, right? I think. So, wouldn't he have to have been the one with the digi-egg they wanted?"

"Hmm, I'm not sure," Naomi said, "Like, I don't see why it couldn't go, some other thing, then Wizardmon, and then _that_ Wizardmon could be the one to become Beelzemon."

"I just don't think it works like that," Takato said.

"I know I don't know anything about any of this," Wynter said quietly, "But from the way things seem to be going in general, I think the Impmon here must be the one they want."

"What makes you say that?" Henry asked.

"There's three people who happened to end up with digimon partners, and one who is now half-digimon or something, and all those people _just so happened_ to live really near each other," Wynter said, "And, the wild digimon that appear _just so happen_ to only appear near enough to the people who can fight them. It just all seems weird and coincidental, like something out of a tv show. So, along that line of reasoning, if they're looking for 'an' Impmon, the one they're looking for is probably the one here."

"I see where you're coming from…" Henry said, "But I feel like you can't apply that logic to reality."

"Reality is already following that logic," Wynter said, "I don't want it to, but it does. It's the same reason I didn't want Naomi being around her," he gestured to Rika, "But it was too late by the time I found out, I think. Because I knew she'd get sucked into it, too. And now I might, too, and I really don't want that, but I think the only way to prevent that would be to never talk to Naomi again, or something."

"I think you're reading too much into everything, dude," Kazu said, "I mean, if it worked like that, why don't I have a digimon partner yet? I hang out with Takato and the others all the time!"

"Yeah, me too!" Kenta said.

"The word there is _yet_ ," Wynter said.

"Huh," Kazu said, "I hope that is how it works, then."

Naomi smiled, "I thought you didn't believe in supernatural things like that."

"I _didn't_ ," Wynter said, "But a lot of it keeps happening anyway."

"Well, whatever kind of reasoning you use, I think that for now we should just assume that it _is_ this Impmon, and not tell him, to be safe," Rika said.

"Why not tell him?" Wynter asked.

"In case he decides to cooperate with them and ends up helping them destroy the world or something."

Wynter was silent, and stared at the ground.

"I… Guess that makes sense," Wynter said, "Only because, going by the same reasoning, what they want him for probably _is_ something like that… It still doesn't feel right to purposely not tell him, though."

Rika shrugged, "Naomi said the same thing."


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wynter's summary of a bad thing that happened to him is a purposely vague summary/reference to something that happens in Something Wicked Nothing Sacred.

About an hour later, Naomi and Wynter were walking back to their house.

As they walked, they heard muttering coming from the trees above them, "Stupid humans. Always lying and betraying you."

Wynter looked at Naomi, "Is that Impmon?" he signed.

She nodded, and looked up at the tree.

Impmon had stopped muttering, and he jumped down, "I can sense you as though you're a digimon now, you know," he said to Naomi. "How much of all that did you hear?"

"Just, 'Stupid humans, always lying and betraying you'," Naomi replied.

"Well, I would've said I don't mean you, but you don't _really_ count as a human."

Naomi laughed, "But why were you saying that?"

"Because I hate humans! Especially the ones with digimon partners!"

Naomi and Wynter's eyes widened.

"But… Why?" Naomi asked, "Like, you'd seemed mostly okay with Rika and the others before now. Did something happen?"

Wynter got Naomi's attention, and signed, "Do you think he heard us talking about purposely not telling him something, earlier?"

"No," Naomi signed back, "Because otherwise he'd be mad at me, too, and he's not."

Wynter shrugged.

Impmon looked between them as they signed, but didn't bother asking what they were saying.

He folded his arms, "I guess as time went on, I'd forgotten just how much humans suck, and how all they do is make false promises and then treat you like shit. I just got reminded a little while ago; it turns out they're not only as bad as I remember, but even worse! I can't believe I'd ever let myself start thinking otherwise!"

Wynter raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

"That's… Specific. Did some specific thing happen?" Naomi said.

Impmon said nothing, and jumped back up into the tree.

Wynter and Naomi continued walking.

"I feel even worse now about not telling him that that digimon or whatever it is wants him," Wynter signed.

Naomi nodded, "Me too," she signed back.

"Obviously something specific did happen," Wynter signed, "But I really don't think it's any of our business."

"Yeah, I know," Naomi signed, "But I'm curious anyway, especially since he's saying _all_ humans are bad. Neither of us say that. Or, I don't say all parents are bad, for example. So, I'm wondering if there's a pattern, like if the other tamers abuse their digimon or something."

Wynter shuddered, "I hope not. Maybe- I don't know, I don't want to just speculate what could have happened."

Naomi nodded.

* * *

When they got home, Naomi stopped before going in the front door, and looked up towards the roof, "I can sense you, too, you know," she said out loud, and smiled.

Impmon jumped down from the roof, and Wynter jumped.

"Was he following us the whole time?" Wynter asked.

"I think so, yeah," Naomi said.

Impmon shrugged, and followed Naomi and Wynter inside.

The three were silent for a few seconds, then Wynter turned to Impmon, "Can I tell you something?"

"Yeah?"

"Wait, actually, Naomi could probably explain it better."

Naomi sighed, "You know that Infermon from a few days ago? And how whoever was talking through it said they were looking for Beelzemon?"

Impmon nodded, "Yeah?"

Wynter continued, "I don't really get it, but apparently that's you. Or, it _could_ be; it's not a guarantee. The tamers-"

Naomi picked up from there, "Well, all of us, decided not to tell you that, but we also felt kinda bad and like it was unfair to not tell you something important that's relevant to you."

"Then we felt even more bad about it just now, and decided to tell you," Wynter said, "Though the others don't know that."

Impmon said nothing for a while.

"What do they want me for?" he asked.

"Well, for one thing," Naomi said, "We don't actually know for sure that it's you specifically. It's just really likely. And I don't know; they wouldn't say."

"Why did you all decide not to tell me?"

"I'd thought it was really obvious which digimon turn into what, but apparently it isn't. So, because since if we weren't here at all, then you wouldn't know. Like, because telling you seemed like interfering."

Wynter looked at Naomi, confused, but said nothing.

"I guess that sort of makes sense," Impmon said, "Hmm. If they find out that I'm the one they want, then they might just take me and not give me any choice."

"Right now they're checking the digital world for digimon that can turn into Beelzemon, so it could turn out not to be you. But I guess we can just assume it is," Naomi said.

"If I knew what exactly they wanted, this would be easier," Impmon said, "Though anything's better than this stupid world full of stupid humans." He turned to Wynter, "No offence, I guess."

Wynter shrugged.

"Why do you hate _all_ humans? Like, is there a pattern? Or, do the other tamers mistreat their digimon, too?" Naomi asked.

Impmon froze, "W-what do you mean _too_? How do you know about-? Anyway, I guess I don't know, but why wouldn't they?"

"It seemed pretty obvious from what you said that some human's been cruel to you, or something like that," Naomi said.

"It was two humans, but yeah."

"I don't know if it helps, but we've been treated badly by humans, too," Wynter said, shuddering slightly at the memories.

"See? Humans are horrible to digimon, _and_ to each other! That just shows even more that they're just a bad species altogether!"

Naomi and Wynter shrugged.

"Technically, yeah, you can say that, but there are _some_ good ones," Wynter said.

"Maybe."

"I don't care if you keep generalising against all humans," Wynter said, "I'm not personally offended. It just sounds kinda sad to feel like _everyone_ is bad and going to hurt you. If you believe that at least some people are good, then you can have hope."

Impmon shrugged.

Naomi was silent. She was curious what had happened to Impmon. Two humans? Had he had one tamer, then left them and got another tamer immediately after? Or had it just been two random humans who weren't tamers at all? But then that wouldn't explain why he'd said that he especially hated humans with digimon partners.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but who were the two humans?" she finally asked.

"What do you mean who were they? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't know them," Impmon said.

"I mean like, who were they in relation to you?"

"Oh," Impmon said, looking down, "Well, their names were Ai and Mako. They're twins. I guess they weren't anything to me, 'cause I'm not gonna say they were my human partners or anything like that."

"You're right, I don't know anyone called that," Naomi said, "You don't have to answer this, either, but what happened, exactly?"

"Nothing!" he said defensively, "You can summarise it as: humans are the worst."

"Well, okay."

"...Basically, they kinda treated me like I was their pet, but worse. They acted almost like I was just a toy, and they also hid me from their parents by keeping me in a closet. I could only come out at night or when they weren't being watched. And when I was out, they'd usually either fight over me, or try to fight with each other through me, like 'go tell Mako he's stupid', and 'go break Ai's toy', and 'you're on my side, right?'. It was hell," he folded his arms, "I don't understand why any digimon would willingly live with a human when that's how they treat you! And they kept promising they'd stop fighting so much, and stop forgetting to give me food, but they'd always go back on it!"

"That sounds awful," Wynter whispered.

"I don't want you feeling sorry for me!" Impmon said, "I just said it 'cause she asked!"

Wynter shrugged, "Don't worry. Some of that is kinda similar to something that happened to me: There was a guy who acted like he was a good person and like he liked me, but was actually pretty fucked up and just using me for his own purposes. It would take a while to explain the whole thing, but the worst parts were kinda similar to what happened to you. I don't know if that helps. I don't like people acting like I'm broken or something, either."

Impmon looked to Naomi, "What about you?"

"What? Like what have people done to me?"

"Yeah, I guess," he gestured towards Wynter, "He said you'd _both_ been treated badly by humans."

"Hmm... I wouldn't say this is the worst thing, but the first thing that comes to mind is how my mom kept forcibly cutting my hair. And how other people liked to cut bits off it, too." She tensed slightly at the memory and looked down.

"Is that why you flipped out that time I burned your hair?" Impmon asked.

Naomi thought back, then nodded.

Wynter looked at Impmon incredulously, "You did _what?_ Why?"

"Uh, I don't remember," Impmon said, "But I definitely learned my lesson; she freaked out and tried to kill me!"

"It's okay," Naomi said, "It was a while ago. I assume you weren't specifically trying to burn my hair, right?"

Impmon shook his head, "I don't think so. You know, now that I think about it, you talk a lot differently now than you did back then."

She shrugged, "Context."

Wynter spoke up, "She speaks differently depending on how comfortable she is, basically. Like, right now, you probably made her uncomfortable by pointing that out."

Naomi shrugged, but nodded.

The three were silent, until Impmon spoke again.

"I'm... Gonna leave now. Maybe I'll talk to that Infermon thing and see if it'll tell me what they want with me; they probably just didn't want to tell humans."

"That makes sense! That's a good idea!" Naomi said.

Impmon nodded, "I guess then I can decide if I wanna go with them or not."

Impmon left, and Wynter turned to Naomi.

"I don't know what to think of him," he said, "He didn't deserve what those people did to him," he shuddered at the thought, "But I'm kinda mad at him for burning your hair."

Naomi laughed, but didn't respond.

"Though also, he mentioned that the two people had to hide him from their parents? I wonder how old they were."

"All digimon tamers are kids, I think," Naomi said, "Both in the tv show and in real life. Kids as in, under eighteen, anyway. Rika's sixteen, so I assume the others are too, though I never asked. So, maybe those two were also sixteen? What difference does it make, anyway?"

"I ain't saying it makes a difference exactly, but it sounded kinda like they were just _little_ kids."

"I think having to live in a closet and not being fed is pretty bad no matter how old the person doing it is. But yeah, I guess if they were only like five then maybe they didn't know any better?" Naomi shrugged.

"I ain't saying it makes it better, just, if they were that young, then it ain't really fair to judge _all_ humans based on ones that didn't know better yet."

"They could've been any age below eighteen, though; they might've been old enough to know better but still young enough to be irresponsible, like twelve, maybe. I'll ask him next time I see him, I guess."

"It ain't important, really," Wynter said, and shrugged.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really short, but I figured it made more sense for it to be its own chapter than to possibly combine it with another completely different scene.

Not much later, Impmon wandered around the city from the rooftops, trying to sense the Infermon being used as surveillance.

After a couple of hours, he finally sensed its presence, and jumped down in front of it.

"Hey, you," he said, "Well, the person who talks through you. Can I ask you something?"

The Infermon's eyes glowed, and the child-like voice came through it, "Are you affiliated with those humans?"

Impmon shook his head, "No. I don't have a human partner, and I hate humans."

"Hmm."

"I end up seeing those humans a lot because they always show up whenever digimon appear, if that's what you're wondering," Impmon said.

"Hmm. I suppose you seem trustworthy enough. What do you want to ask?"

"What are you gathering digimon for? Like, when you find the one you're looking for, what are you going to do?"

"The set of digimon we're gathering is a specific set of seven, known as the Demon Lords. I'm Lucemon, the Demon Lord of Pride, and I'm the one who is mainly in charge of gathering the other six. Once we've gathered all seven, our combined powers should be enough to take over the digital world."

"Oh," Impmon said. He wasn't entirely sure what to think about taking over the digital world, but it didn't really sound too bad. Assuming he was the one they were looking for, of course.

"Well," Impmon said after some hesitation, "I heard the humans saying that my mega form is Beelzemon. That's the one you're looking for, right?"

The Infermon- well, Lucemon- was silent for a moment.

" _That's_ why that human cut off the _rookie_ part of the evolution chart she showed me," Lucemon said, "And that's why there was no trace of Beelzemon anywhere. It all makes sense now!"

Impmon shrugged, "I don't really know how it all works, though; just because I can become Beelzemon in theory doesn't mean I'm the one, right?"

"No," Lucemon said, "I think it does. We never came across another Impmon, either, so that points to it being you."

"Well, what now?"

"The next step is for you to go to the digital world, but I'm not entirely sure how that can be done."

"How did you get here?"

"There are some locations in the digital world that are like 'cracks' in the separation between the two worlds, and it's possible to slip through them. I haven't seen any equivalent here, though."

"Oh," Impmon said, "So I guess we need to figure out how to get to the digital world?"

"Yes. But I'm confident that either some kind of 'crack' will eventually appear in this world, or that myself and the other Demon Lords can figure something out."

The Infermon's eyes stopped glowing, and Impmon hesitated for a second, before walking away.


End file.
